Overcoming Problems – Sunday, October 16, 1983
A problem, like a child’s exercise in mathematics, seems something to be solved according to an easy formula, set aside and then forgotten. Certainly, that’s what we hope for in life. Sometimes under our breath, we pray, “Let it not be too hard today.” We look forward to a time when the difficulties will level off. We think that after a challenge has passed, after a sickness is spent, or after the closets are organized, then will come a time of peace. Not so.
Problems are a condition of personal mortality, the ebb and sometimes-inconvenient flow of a world where we are only visiting. There is no security from them.
Helen Keller, who ought to know, is quoted as saying this about security: “It is mostly a superstition. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
But sometimes the danger of living can almost overwhelm us. We wonder if we can manage our problems, or if they will manage us. We could handle them if they would come one at a time with sufficient breaks, but too often they flood us. We frantically search our resources and seem to come up empty.
That is when we need to remember the great message of the gospel. To God nothing is impossible, and we are not alone. We were not born to fail. He who has known us longer than we can remember can give us back to ourselves. However, much evidence we may muster to the contrary, He knows that we have the power within us to meet any problem with His help.
Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly used to carry the following prayer in her purse: “Our Father, who has set restlessness in our hearts and made us all seekers after that which we can never fully find, keep us at tasks too hard for us, that we may be driven to Thee for strength.”
We must never doubt that He can deliver.
_____________________________________
October 16, 1983
Broadcast Number 2,826