THE PURPOSE OF PROBLEMS is to push you toward obedience toGod’s laws, which are exact and cannot be changed.We have the freewill to obey them or disobey them. Obedience will bring harmony,disobedience will bring you more problems.
Likewise, when societies get out of harmony, problems developwithin the society. Collective problems.Their purpose is to push thewhole society toward harmony. Individuals can discover that theycan not only grow and learn through individual problem solving,they can learn and grow through collective problem solving. I oftensay I’ve run out of personal problems, then every once in a while alittle one presents itself somewhere. But I hardly recognize it as aproblem because it seems so insignificant. Actually, I want to do allmy learning and growing now by helping to solve collective problems.
There was a time when I thought it was a nuisance to be confrontedwith a problem. I tried to get rid of it. I tried to get somebodyelse to solve it for me. But that time was long ago. It was a great dayin 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 neverwish such a life for any of you.What I wish for you is the great innerstrength to solve your problems meaningfully and grow. Problemsare learning and growing experiences. A life without problemswould be a barren existence, without the opportunity for spiritualgrowth.
I once met a woman who had virtually no problems. I was on alate-night radio program in New York City. This woman called thestation and wanted me to come to her home. I was intending tospend the night at the bus station, so I said okay. She sent her chauffeurfor me, and I found myself in a millionaire’s home, talking to amiddle-aged woman who seemed like a child. She was so immature,and I wondered at her immaturity, until I realized that the womanhad been shielded from all problems by a group of servants andlawyers. She had never come to grips with life. She had not had problemsto grow on, and therefore had not grown. Problems are blessingsin disguise!
Were I to solve problems for others they would remain stagnant;they would never grow. It would be a great injustice to them. Myapproach is to help with cause rather than effect.When I help others,it is by instilling within them the inspiration to work out problemsby 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 overcomeit. If a great problem is set before you, this merely indicatesthat you have the great inner strength to solve a great problem.Thereis never really anything to be discouraged about, because difficultiesare opportunities for inner growth, and the greater the difficulty thegreater the opportunity for growth.
Difficulties with material things often come to remind us thatour concentration should be on spiritual things instead of materialthings. Sometimes difficulties of the body come to show that thebody is just a transient garment, and that the reality is the indestructibleessence which activates the body. But when we can say, “ThankGod for problems which are sent for our spiritual growth,” they areproblems 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 canstill see her, arranging the pillows behind her back so it wouldn’thurt quite so much. She was quite bitter about this. I talked to herabout the wonderful purpose of problems in our lives, and I tried toinspire her to think about God instead of her problems. I must havebeen successful to some degree, because one night after she had goneto bed she got to thinking about God.
“God regards me, this little grain of dust, as so important that hesends me just the right problems to grow on,” she began thinking.
And she turned to God and said, “Oh, dear God, thank you for thispain through which I may grow closer to thee.” Then the pain wasgone and it has never returned. Perhaps that’s what it means when itsays: ‘In all things be thankful.’ Maybe more often we should pray theprayer of thankfulness for our problems.
Prayer is a concentration of positive thoughts.
Many common problems are caused by wrong attitudes. Peoplesee themselves as the center of the universe and judge everything asit relates to them. Naturally you won’t be happy that way.You canonly be happy when you see things in proper perspective: all humanbeings are of equal importance in God’s sight, and have a job to doin the divine plan.
I’ll give you an example of a woman who had some difficultyfinding out what her job was in the divine plan. She was in her earlyforties, single, and needed to earn a living. She hated her work to theextent that it made her sick, and the first thing she did was to go toa psychiatrist who said he would adjust her to her job. So after someadjustment she went back to work. But she still hated her job. Shegot sick again and then came to me.Well, I asked what her callingwas, and she said, “I’m not called to do anything.”
That was not true.What she really meant was she didn’t knowher calling. So I asked her what she liked to do because if it is yourcalling 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, butwasn’t good enough to earn her living at that. She liked to swim, butwasn’t good enough to be a swimming instructor, and she liked towork with flowers.
I got her a job in a florist shop so she could earn her living workingwith flowers. She loved it. She said she would do it for nothing.
But we used the other things too. Remember, she needed more thanjust a livelihood. She needed other things.The swimming became herexercise. It fits in with sensible living habits. The piano playingbecame her path of service. She went to a retirement home andplayed the old songs for the people there. She got them to sing, andshe was good at that. Out of those three things such a beautiful lifewas built for that woman. She became a very attractive woman andmarried a year or so later. She stayed right in that life pattern.
I knew another woman who was confined to her room and hadbeen there for quite some time. I went in to see her and I could tellimmediately from the lines in her face and the tenseness of her thatit wasn’t physical at all.And I don’t think I had talked to her for morethan five minutes before she was telling me all about how mean hersister had been to her.The way she told it, I knew she had told thatstory again and again and mulled over in her mind constantly that bitternessagainst her sister. I found myself explaining to her that if shewould forgive, ask forgiveness, and make peace with her sister, thenshe could look for an improvement in her health. “Huh!” she said. “I’drather die. You have no idea how mean she was.” So the situationdrifted for awhile.
But early one morning at dawn this woman wrote a beautiful andinspired letter to her sister, which she showed to me. (There is somethingvery wonderful to be said about dawn. Sunset is good, too.Theonly thing is, at sunset most everybody is awake and they’re hurryingand scurrying around. At dawn most everybody is slowed downor asleep and they are much more harmonious when they’re asleep.
So dawn is often a good time for spiritual things.) I immediately wentinto 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 Ihad mailed it! She worried a little, but by return mail came a letterfrom 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 sisterthe woman was up and around and out of bed, and the last I saw ofher 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.
Some people spend much less time picking a life partner thanthey spend picking out a car.They just drift into these relationships.
No one should enter the family pattern unless one is as muchcalled into it as I was called to my pilgrimage. Otherwise, there willbe tragedy. I can remember a woman who couldn’t get along withher husband and I could see they didn’t have anything in common. Ifinally said to her, “Why in the world did you marry that man in thefirst place?” And she said, “All my girlfriends were getting marriedand he was the best I could do at the time.” This happens all the time.
Do you wonder why there are so many divorces? People get into thefamily pattern without being called into it.
Emotional attachment can be a terrible thing.When I was workingwith people who had problems it often was a problem of someemotional attachment that obviously needed to be broken. One wasa sixteen year old girl. By now she is probably happily married tosomebody else. I always say time heals all wounds, but she thoughtthen that her heart was broken because her boyfriend had marriedsomeone else. Although she had a hard time coming through it, aftera time she was able to look upon it philosophically. It does take time.
In fact, sometimes people recover quicker from the death of a lovedone than from a loved one who has left them.
On the Worry Habit.
Live this day! Yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only avision, but today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happinessand every tomorrow a vision of hope. Never agonize over thepast or worry over the future. Live this day and live it well.
Worry is a habit. It is something that can be worked on. I call itrelinquishment of the worry habit. There are techniques that help. Italk to some beautiful church people and I discover they still worry.
It’s a total waste of time and energy. If you are a praying person whoprays with faith, you would immediately, and automatically, takewhat you’re worried about to God in prayer and leave it in God’shands—the best possible hands. This is one technique which isexcellent. In the beginning you may have to take it back to Godquite a number of times before you develop the habit (which I havedeveloped) of always doing everything you can in a situation, andthen leaving the rest safely in God’s hands.
How often are you worrying about the present moment? Thepresent is usually all right. If you’re worrying, you’re either agonizingover the past which you should have forgotten long ago, or elseyou’re apprehensive over the future which hasn’t even come yet.Wetend to skim right over the present moment which is the only momentGod gives any of us to live. If you don’t live the present moment, younever get around to living at all. And if you do live the presentmoment, you tend not to worry. For me, every moment is a new andwonderful opportunity to be of service.
On the Anger Habit.
I’ll mention here a couple of other habits. One of them is theanger habit. Tremendous energy comes with anger. It’s sometimescalled the anger energy. Do not suppress it: that would hurt youinside. Do not express it: this would not only hurt you inside, itwould cause ripples in your surroundings.What you do is transformit.You somehow use that tremendous energy constructively on a taskthat needs to be done, or in a beneficial form of exercise.
The best way to talk to you about this is to tell you what somepeople actually did. For instance, one woman washed all the windowsin the house, another woman vacuumed the house whether itneeded it or not, and another baked bread—nice, whole grain bread.
And another one sat down and played the piano: wild marches atfirst, then she’d cool down and play gentle things like hymns and lullabies,and then I knew she was all right.
There was a man who got out his manual lawnmower. Remember,the manual lawnmower has no motor.You may never haveseen one! And he mowed his big lawn. I was staying next door tohim.Then one day he came over and borrowed his neighbor’s powerlawnmower. I spoke to him about it and he said, “Oh, without theanger energy I could never mow that big lawn with a manuallawnmower.” You see, it’s really tremendous energy.
Then there was this man who saved his marriage. He had such abad temper that his young wife was about to leave him and take theirtwo small children along. And he said, “I’m going to do somethingabout this!” And he did.Whenever he felt a temper tantrum comingon, instead of throwing things all over the house which had been hisprevious custom, he got out there and jogged. Round and round theblock, until he was all out of breath and the energy was all gone—and he saved his marriage. It worked. I saw him again years later, andI asked him, “Well, are you still jogging?” “Oh, a little bit for exercise,”
he said, “but I haven’t had a temper tantrum for years.” As youuse the energy constructively you lose the anger habit.
These techniques have also worked with children. I recall oneten year old boy. I was trying to help his mother because she washaving an awful time with him. He got temper tantrums and onetime, when he was not having a tantrum, I asked him, “Of all thethings you do what takes the most energy?” And he said, “I guess runningup the hill in the back of the house.” And so we found a wonderfulsolution. Every tim............