“PROBLEM SOLVING 101”
I was trying to open a door, and was having no success at all. A passerby stopped to help. “Try pulling it to you instead of pushing,” he said. The door opened easily. The Good Samaritan couldn’t resist a parting shot: “It helps if you read!”
Sure enough, in big, bold, black letters, right at my eye level, was the single word
PULL
Ironically, I had just found out that I had been admitted to the Ph.D. program at St. John’s College, Nottingham. I was thinking (as I was trying to open the door) about all the reading I needed to do over the next several years.
Paying attention to the here and now is easy to say. Pulling it off is another matter. And yet, problem-solving may be largely a matter of paying attention to what’s in front of us when it is in front of us.
Problem-solving is also a matter of listening to the wisdom and common sense of other people. Take my coffee cup, for example. A year-and-a-half ago, a cousin by marriage served me a cup of coffee in a mug that was the size of a Sherman tank. I’ve been drinking my coffee and tea in it ever since. Partly, this is because Pam is a very nice lady whom I like a lot. Mostly, it is because I am lazy. Why should I waste my time drinking two cups of coffee, when I can drink one?
However, the coffee gets cold before I can finish it, so I have to warm it up one or more times. My wife has pointed out several times that perhaps I should just drink my coffee from a smaller cup. Today, I had a blinding flash of the obvious: She’s right! I drank my coffee from a smaller cup, and sure enough, I didn’t have to warm it up—even once!
Sometimes, I also have a rather obvious insight about God and people. Not often, just sometimes. Here’s one from today.
A friend of mine and I call and chat on the phone almost every day. We also pray for one another over the phone. He is Jewish and I am Christian. He is one of the most Christian Jews that I know, and I am probably one of the most Jewish Christians he knows. This morning I prayed for my friend over the phone as follows: “God, I really cherish this dear friend, and look forward to enjoying his friendship forever. If he’s not in Heaven, God, I’m going to be really ticked off with you, and you don’t want me to be ticked off with you!” I do talk to God like that. I’m not prim and proper. I’m real.
After the amen, and after I hung up, I felt God gently (and not without a touch of humor) saying to me, “You know, I love your friend even more than you do.” I sent my friend a text to that effect. He texted me back the following: “Thanks! He said the same to me about you.”
God loves all of us more than any of us loves any of us. And that, dear reader, that realization should solve a lot of problems!
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