My Nemesis: Special Agent Oso

How to DIY in 3 Easy Steps

There is one cartoon that particularly sets me on edge and rubs me the wrong way.  It is “Special Agent Oso”.  He is a yellow stuffed bear that goes on special missions to help children learn to conquer tasks in 3 easy steps.  His overall goal can be summarized in his theme song “3 Special Steps” which goes as follows:

Three special steps, that’s all you need.

Three special steps, and you’ll succeed.

Your special assignment is starting now,

and three special steps will show you how.

Step 1.. Step 2.. Step 3

Three special steps, so now you know.

Three special steps and you’re ready to go!

The checklist has all the steps you need.

Just follow them all and you will succeed

with three special steps!

I love taking a task and breaking it down into obtainable steps.  Naturally my mind sees a responsibility and organizes it into measurable, planned out goals.  I have been doing this as long as I can remember.  It is how my mind processes the work that has to be done.  When I was 6 years old I was presented with a new task one Sunday morning in church.  My teacher asked, “Who hasn’t accepted Jesus as their Savior?”  I hadn’t, and the process to become a Christian seemed doable to me.

STEP 1:

Raise your hand if you wanted to obey the teacher.

STEP 2:

Repeat after the teacher the short prayer.

STEP 3:

Receive a small piece of paper with your name and date stating you were now a Christian.

I kept that paper for year and years.  Almost two decades after that Sunday morning I received another task on a Sunday morning, “follow these three simple steps to know if really are a Christian:”

STEP 1:

Read your Bible and pray regularly.

STEP 2:

Admit that you are a sinner.

STEP 3:

Ask Jesus into your heart for a personal relationship.

I can pervert any seemingly well-meaning advice into a checklist to follow.  Mommy blogs, super savings blogs, and happy homemaker blogs…I can read their posts and turn it into advice to follow in order to achieve success.  Three simple steps to a well-running household:

STEP 1:

Cut coupons and menu plan all of your meals

STEP 2:

Keep your children on a creative schedule of activities.

STEP 3:

De-clutter and decorate your home, while giving your goods to the needy.

I pride myself in my special ability to control, organize and conquer tasks at hand.  But my special ability does not come without consequences.  The process of taking an overwhelming task and breaking it down into doable chunks is usually an emotional ordeal.  Lots of anxiety, frustration, worry, and sorrow flood my body before I am able to take a seemingly impossible task and make it doable.  But I endure the flood of emotions because it is through making a task doable that I find rest.  But that rest is temporary and insatiable . My "rest" is in my ability to complete my assignment in three special steps, and all I need is a checklist to follow in order to succeed!

One day I came across some verses that stopped me in my checklist-making tracks:

Galatians 3:2-3 “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

Romans 10:1-4 “Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.^”

Romans 9:16 “ So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”

Romans 11:6 “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”

So with special ability of breaking down impossible tasks into a doable checklist, why is Special Agent Oso my nemesis?  Because I am a sinner.  Failure is always the result when I seek to conquer something all in my own effort.  In my effort to obey I only stir up and multiple my failure and inability to succeed. 

Romans 5:20-21 “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Thanks be to Jesus Christ who saved me from my pursuit of checklists!  Praise to my Savior who has given me rest from all my labor. 

Hebrews 4:10 “For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works.”  I can rest in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.