The Person with Uncommon Sense for Uncommon Times

Presently the world is a hodgepodge of problems and opportunities. I'm meeting more and more people concerned about the challenges our children will face in the future. Many observations, suggestions and plans about how to fix the world. Proverbs 28:2 says, "When the country is in chaos, everybody has a plan to fix it, but it takes a leader of real understanding to straighten things out." That’s a great assessment of our current times.

So, let's look for a solution to our problems and the world's problems you might not expect. Let me illustrate with a story.

 
There was once a small boy who banged a drum all day and loved every moment of it. He would not be quiet, no matter what anyone else said or did. Various attempts were made to do something about the child. One person told the boy that he would perforate his eardrums if he continued with the noise. This reasoning was too advanced for the child, who was neither a scientist nor a scholar.

A second person told him drum beating was a sacred activity and should be carried out only on special occasions. The third person offered the neighbors ear plugs; a fourth gave the boy a book; a fifth gave the neighbors books that described a method of controlling anger through biofeedback; a sixth gave the boy meditation exercises to make him placid and docile. None of these attempts worked.

Eventually, a wise person came along with a solution. He looked at the situation, handed the child a hammer and chisel and asked, "I wonder what's inside the drum?"

Proverbs 11:14 confirms this story. "Without good direction, people lose their way; the more wise counsel you follow, the better your chances." While all those people had good suggestions, they were powerless to stop the problem. Faddish trends like pop psychology and the other methods suggested are good to a point but don't have the power to solve real problems. Doing the same thing again and again, cloaked in different terms and language, and expecting different results is called insanity. John Powell says, "The only real mistake is one from which we learn nothing."

What we need is wise people who come along with a solution so simple it startles us. He aimed the boy to the inside.

Could it be that the external problems of today are really caused by a problem on the inside of mankind? Could it be that while we love to treat the symptoms, we ignore the cause? I bet if we dealt with the root of our problem, it would stop the fruit of the problem? That’s what Jesus did. He came, like the man with the chisel and hammer, to give us real solutions to real problems. His unexpected motivation and solution was that at the heart of the problem is the problem of man's heart.

People are getting more and more self-absorbed. You've heard the rhetoric, "Life is about me. I have a right. I get what I want. Whether right or wrong, I didn't get what I wanted and I’m mad." The problem is even when we do good things, it's self-motivated rather than others motivated, doing the right things for the wrong reasons. The outcome is an us/them outlook on life that maroons on philosophical, adversarial islands. We end up tearing each other apart.

Changing Presidents or political parties won't help, at least for long. That's external. We need a change of heart. We need uncommon sense in these uncommon times for healing the inside of bitter, polarized people. Deal with the inside problems and you will solve ninety percent of the outside problems.

 

Where do you find this uncommon sense? In the Bible and in Jesus! Learn to 'mine' the wisdom of God. There’s gold in the verses. The more wise counsel you follow, the better your chances.

 

Let the inside healing begin.

Ed Delph   March 12,2018   CCC