31 Days: #30 I don't like following directions.

I'll do almost anything to get out of reading instruction manuals. I find them intimidating because I'm not a technical-type person at all. That's why I'm a better cook than I am a baker. When you cook, you can just throw any amount of anything in and it usually turns out okay. But with baking you have to be way too precise. You have to follow directions, and step-by-step anything makes me crazy.

I bought a really good camera this past summer, and it's so fancy I can't even use it. I have no idea what all the buttons and switches and dials and settings are for, and the complicatedness of it has forced me to actually read the manual. Which, incidentally, has only confused me more. I ended up buying a For Dummies book written specifically for this model of camera (ugh-an even bigger manual).

But despite my aversion to following directions, there's one Instruction Manual I've learned to appreciate.

As with most manuals, I avoided reading it for quite some time. But this Manual was written in a style very different from that of any other manual I've read before. Although I find parts of it mysterious and difficult to understand, I can tell it's been written especially for me. Its purpose is not to help me with a gadget or recipe or fix-it project, but to make my life easier and to teach me about love and to show me what grace means.

It's quite a Manual. But then, He's quite an Author.

*This post is part of a series running through the month of October 2011. Read from the beginning here.  Find the other 31-Dayers here.