Solving Life’s Problems - 1
THE PURPOSE OF PROBLEMS is to push you
toward obedience to God’s laws, which are exact
and cannot be changed. We have the free will to
obey them or disobey them. Obedience will bring
harmony; disobedience will bring you more
problems.
Likewise, when societies get out of harmony,
problems develop within the society. Collective
problems. Their purpose is to push the whole
society toward harmony. Individuals can
discover that they can not only grow and learn
through individual problem solving, they can
learn and grow through collective problem
solving. I often say I’ve run out of personal
problems; then every once in a while a little
one presents itself somewhere. But I hardly
recognize it as a problem, because it seems
so insignificant. Actually, I want to do all my
learning and growing now by helping to solve
collective problems.
There was a time when I thought it was a
nuisance to be confronted with a problem. I tried
to get rid of it. I tried to get somebody else to
solve it for me. But that time was long ago. It
was a great day in my life when I discovered the
wonderful purpose of problems. Yes, they have
a wonderful purpose.
Some people wish for a life of no problems, but I
would never wish such a life for any of you. What
I wish for you is the great inner strength to solve
your problems meaningfully and grow. Problems
are learning and growing experiences. A life
without problems would be a barren existence,
without the opportunity for spiritual growth.
I once met a woman who had virtually no
problems. I was on a late-night radio program in
New York City. This woman called the station
and wanted me to come to her home. I was
intending to spend the night at the bus station, so
I said okay. She sent her chauffeur for me, and
I found myself in a millionaire’s home, talking
to a middle-aged woman who seemed like a
child. She was so immature, and I wondered at
her immaturity, until I realized that the woman
had been shielded from all problems by a group
of servants and lawyers. She had never come to
grips with life. She had not had problems to grow
on, and therefore had not grown. Problems are
blessings in disguise!
Were I to solve problems for others they would
remain stagnant; they would never grow. It
would be a great injustice to them. My approach
is to help with cause rather than effect. When
I help others, it is by instilling within them the
inspiration to work out problems by themselves.
If you feed a man a meal, you only feed him for a
day — but if you teach a man to grow food, you
feed him for a lifetime.
It is through solving problems correctly that we
grow spiritually. We are never given a burden
unless we have the capacity to overcome it. If
a great problem is set before you, this merely
indicates that you have the great inner strength
to solve a great problem. There is never really
anything to be discouraged about, because
difficulties are opportunities for inner growth,
and the greater the difficulty the greater the
opportunity for growth.
Difficulties with material things often come
to remind us that our concentration should be
on spiritual things instead of material things.
Sometimes difficulties of the body come to show
that the body is just a transient garment, and that
the reality is the indestructible essence which
activates the body. But when we can say, “Thank
God for problems which are sent for our spiritual
growth,” they are problems no longer. They then
become opportunities.
Let me tell you a story of a woman who had a
personal problem. She lived constantly with
pain. It was something in her back. I can still see
her, arranging the pillows behind her back so it
wouldn’t hurt quite so much. She was quite bitter
about this. I talked to her about the wonderful
purpose of problems in our lives, and I tried to
inspire her to think about God instead of her
problems. I must have been successful to some
degree, because one night after she had gone to
bed she got to thinking about God.
“God regards me, this little grain of dust, as so
important that he sends me just the right problems
to grow on,” she began thinking. And she turned
to God and said, “Oh, dear God, thank you for this
pain through which I may grow closer to thee.”
Then the pain was gone and it has never returned.
Perhaps that’s what it means when it says: ‘In all
things be thankful.’ Maybe more often we should
pray the prayer of thankfulness for our problems.
Prayer is a concentration of positive thoughts.
Many common problems are caused by wrong
attitudes. People see themselves as the center of
the universe and judge everything as it relates to
them. Naturally you won’t be happy that way.
You can only be happy when you see things in
proper perspective: all human beings are of equal
importance in God’s sight, and have a job to do
in the divine plan.
I’ll give you an example of a woman who had
some difficulty finding out what her job was
in the divine plan. She was in her early forties,
single, and needed to earn a living. She hated her
work to the extent that it made her sick, and the
first thing she did was to go to a psychiatrist who
said he would adjust her to her job. So after some
adjustment she went back to work. But she still
hated her job. She got sick again and then came
to me. Well, I asked what her calling was, and she
said, “I’m not called to do anything.”
That was not true. What she really meant was she
didn’t know her calling. So I asked her what she
liked to do because if it is your calling you will do
it as easily and joyously as I walk my pilgrimage.
I found she liked to do three things. She liked to
play the piano, but wasn’t good enough to earn
her living at that. She liked to swim, but wasn’t
good enough to be a swimming instructor, and
she liked to work with flowers.
I got her a job in a florist shop so she could earn
her living working with flowers. She loved it. She
said she would do it for nothing. But we used the
other things too. Remember, she needed more
than just a livelihood. She needed other things.
The swimming became her exercise. It fits in with
sensible living habits. The piano playing became
her path of service. She went to a retirement
home and played the old songs for the people
there. She got them to sing, and she was good
at that. Out of those three things such a beautiful
life was built for that woman. She became a very
attractive woman and married a year or so later.
She stayed right in that life pattern.
I knew another woman who was confined to her
room and had been there for quite some time. I
went in to see her and I could tell immediately
from the lines in her face and her tenseness
that it wasn’t physical at all. And I don’t think
I had talked to her for more than five minutes
before she was telling me all about how mean
her sister had been to her. The way she told it,
I knew she had told that story again and again
and mulled over in her mind constantly that
bitterness against her sister. I found myself
explaining to her that if she would forgive, ask
forgiveness, and make peace with her sister,
then she could look for an improvement in
her health. “Huh!” she said. “I’d rather die.
You have no idea how mean she was.” So the
situation drifted for a while.
But early one morning at dawn this woman wrote
a beautiful and inspired letter to her sister, which
she showed to me. (There is something very
wonderful to be said about dawn. Sunset is good,
too. The only thing is, at sunset most everybody is
awake and they’re hurrying and scurrying around.
At dawn, mostly everybody is slowed down or
asleep and they are much more harmonious when
they’re asleep. So dawn is often a good time for
spiritual things.) I immediately went into town
and mailed the letter before she could change
her mind. When I got back, she had changed her
mind — so it’s a good thing I had mailed it! She
worried a little, but by return mail came a letter
from her sister, and her sister was so glad they
were to be reconciled.
And, you know, on the
same day that letter arrived from her sister the
woman was up and around and out of bed, and
the last I saw of her she was joyously off for a
reconciliation with her sister.
There’s something to that old saying that hate
injures the hater, not the hated.
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