So Much Harder

Exodus 34:28
So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

compare with

Exodus 31:18
And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.

The first time through the commandments, God wrote them and Moses just listened.  After reacting to the Golden Calf by throwing down the tablets, God had Moses come back up to 'get another copy;' the only trouble was, this time it was Moses that had to do the writing.

When we do it our way instead of God's way, it's often much more difficult