The Pursuit of a Problem

One of the shows that our grandchildren enjoy is Peg plus Cat which is designed to teach mathematics as well as the fine art of problem solving.  When a difficulty presents itself, the characters don't just ignore the problem or throw up their hands and live with it.  Where would be the adventure in that?  This little girl and her cat seek creative ways not to endure the problem, but to solve it, coming at it from all different angles. They use math to find their way through to the solution.

The show always ends with the lyrics:

"Problem solved,
Problem solved,
We solved the problem,
Problem solved."

How often do I live with a difficult situation or relationship and just let it be?  "Well, I just guess that is how it is."

Pursue God in this.

If there is a problem, find the solution.  Come at it from every angle.  And that would start with prayer. Lay out the problem before the LORD, place it on the altar, verbalize the difficulty and frustration, and then listen and heed.

Why pray?  God already knows the full extent of the problem.  But until we verbalize it, until we come before Him with its bulkiness in our hands, we don't realize it yet.  Prayer is bringing it before God.

"Prayer is the way to experience a powerful confidence that God is handling our lives well, that our bad things will turn out for good, our good things cannot be taken from us, and the best things are yet to come," writes Timothy Keller in his book Prayer.

What God can do with it, I cannot foresee.  What God wants me to do in it, He will reveal step by step. How God wants to change me as a result will bear much fruit, far beyond my lifetime.

Because the outward resolution of this problem may not be as significant as the transformation of my heart in this.  When He changes me, God alters the landscape and thereby impacts everyone around me.

God will provide the resolution, God will redeem, but we must follow Him into it.  And just like on that children's show, when we start pursuing the problem, we discover deeper things than we could have imagined, not just a solution, not just an answer, but new dimensions of the God who loves us so much.

Hezekiah received the letter
from the hand of the messenger,
and read it;
and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD,
and spread it before the LORD.

                         2 Kings 19.14

Seek God in what is before you.
God resolves,
God redeems,
God will use it
             for His great glory.