Problems

Problems. Everybody has them. They seem to be proportional. For example, deciding what to eat for dinner, over desperately trying to find food for my children this week. That kind of proportion. Trying to figure out why someone is mad at you, over where to hide from the murderous rebel army. Proportion.

Problems are a matter of proportion. The hows and whys and whens and wherefores to deal with them has fostered endless business enterprises. When our conscience is bothering us and we are aware of a nagging inner voice about some perplexing issue that keeps rolling over and over in our minds, identifying the issue is important, but how we resolve it is usually the bigger problem. Bookstores and psychologists and all the folks who truly care, on the positive side, and on the negative side, charlatans and thieves and people who only make the problem worse! At any rate there is a whole mountain of enterprises built upon people’s misery, and most often we neither have the time or the money to probe their solutions. The point is that costs of both time and money can be overwhelming, no matter the intentions. As the old adage says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” — “an idiom or proverb. It is about the difference between what someone intends to do and what they actually do. In other words, the road to failure is [often] made easier by good intentions.” — Wikipedia

Do we keep on ignoring problems? Do we deal with them like we do a snooze button? Maybe we get busy with chores. Distractions are a very popular tool to pry us loose, and busying ourselves can be effective, although only a temporary fix. TV, phones, and tablets, filling our minds and crowd out what is nagging us. Like pulling the covers up over our heads when we are so tired, blocking out the sunrise gleaming through our windows. Hit the snooze button.

Darkness. Why not bring things like that out into the light? Because experience has told us there aren’t any solutions. That’s just a part of life that we have to accept. It’s embarrassing. Well there are some fixes that work. At least, they work temporarily. And if I’m sinking underneath the waves, I’ll pretty much grab anything that floats.

People spend an extravagant amount of time worrying, usually disproportionate to the weight of their problem. Most things that harass us are really not that horrible, and we are not horrible people. But ignored problems tend to pile up. Sometimes we are overwhelmed, and cannot dig out from underneath that pile. For some reason, without being able to uncover the actual problem, a finger of condemnation is pointed right at our heads. The real reasons are lost. Yet, we blame ourselves for some unseen reason.

By suppressing our thinking about conscience driven problems — through distraction or simple lack of mental resources or by whatever other lack, our mindsets dictate that perhaps other resources may be applied. Suppression is no solution. The search goes on.

Personal problems abound in the world today. They have existed throughout history. Humanity seems to have the amazing proclivity to slide backward, and sideways, and upside down. Today the whole world is sliding backwards, sideways and upside down — to the point that Humanity’s very existence is threatened. So, the problems plaguing us are no longer personal, but societal… and we treat them the same way as we do personal ones. Ignore, distract, and suppress “to our own destruction.” This just cannot be happening!

Do people ever want to “wipe the slate clean?” Doesn’t everybody at one time or another wish for a completely fresh start? A new world? Noone wants to keep slogging through the muck. Noone wants to keep falling back into the soup. “Well, that’s just the way it is.” Yes. I suppose that is true, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

There is another way. it is a far better approach to problems, big and small, personal or societal, local or worldwide. I know, because I have discovered it, tested it out, and chosen to walk across its bridge. It is good to remember, you don’t have to pay me or anybody else anything. It is a free gift. People have a hard time believing that, because it’s free. Anything worthwhile, we think, has to be expensive. “The better it is, the higher its price.” has been instilled in our brains.

The answer I am offering is wonderful in its simplicity. It takes only a simple ask, and it is free. Yet, even though it is a far better approach to problems, big and small, personal or societal, local or worldwide, and knowing problems are so utterly complicated, it is hard to accept that the solution is so simple.

The solution is not found in some pipedream. It is real. It is actual. It is an applied science, applicable to real life and real living. It isn’t escapism. It only requires you to follow through. The only demand is that you have to participate. It’s not a cult. It isn’t a step program — neither 3, 12, or 112. It is quite simple, really, but it is hard to accept. Pride, false pride that is, gets in the way. The solution is in the Bible. Unfortunately, that statement immediately “turns people off.” There are valid reasons. So, let me put it to you this way: At a restaurant with an extensive menu, often people try something new on someone’s recommendation., especially when they are paying with a gift card. This is my recommendation… but there is one problem. The problem being that you don’t know me. It is a problem or trust. Okay. That is to be expected and is certainly reasonable. That is entirely up to you, but thanks for listening.

The Bible talks about salvation as being rescued from all our problems. It talks about all our personal problems being caused by our wanderings. It talks about where we have fallen into the soup. It tells us simply about our insufficient human nature and the futility of our stubborn attempts to be self-sufficient. The Bible talks about “sin” as something separating us from God, as something like falling short of all the good things a doting father would want for his children. The Bible talks about all this through real people living real lives. These real people actually knew Jesus, ate with HIm, walked and talked with Him… like I said: this is applied science.

Perhaps we are unaware of or perhaps never have heard of this solution, but dismissing Jesus’ hand reaching out to us, we kind of flop around like a fish on the deck of a boat. I know I did… but it was more like a shark trapped on the deck, really mad and snapping at anything I could reach… especially a hand. It’s hard to imagine the simplicity of reaching out to Jesus. We just have to reach out until we get a hold of that hand.

The Bible’s recollection of the Wise Men says that they found the toddler, Jesus, months after the Nativity. He was living in His home with His parents, Joseph and Mary. The history here presents an allegorical double entendre: “Wise men still seek Him.” It takes time and effort to accept Jesus in your life, and if you are wise you will certainly do so. It took me months after I called on God, demanding answers to the world’s problems, and months after that to come to a “saving knowledge” of Jesus, dealing with my own problems. That is, to realize I needed to reach out my hand. Jesus did grab hold.

Acts 2:21

“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Matthew 7:7

“Seek and you will find.”

Luke 15:4

“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”

Read the Bible and seek His presence in your life. Reach out that hand. Jesus isn’t like a fitful shark; He is referred to as the Lamb of God.

Grabbing His hand worked for me … still is working for me … and I am confident it will continue to work for me. Jesus is working on me, and He will be the same way with you.

God is faithful.

He plows a pathway where there is no path.