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For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God's children. And since we are his children, we will share his treasures--for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. (Romans 8:16-17 NLV). “Every
problem is an opportunity to prove God’s power. Every day we encounter
countless golden, opportunities, brilliantly disguised as insurmountable
problems. Anon If it weren’t for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have
no song.” 1 Edward
deBono, the Oxford exponent of lateral thinking, suggests that when we can’t
solve a problem using traditional methods, we should try “detours and
reversals,” anything that will give us a different angle from which to ponder
solutions. To illustrate, he tells this story about a problem faced by
executives of a large company. The company had moved into a new skyscraper and
discovered that the builder apparently had not put in enough elevators.
Employees were disgruntled because there were over long waits for the elevators,
especially at both ends of the working day. The
company got a wide cross-section of the staff together and asked them to sit
down and solve the problem. The task force came up with four possible solutions:
Which
solution would you have chosen? According to Professor deBono, if you chose the
first, second, or fourth solutions, then you are a “vertical” or traditional
thinker. If you chose the third possibility, then you are a “lateral
thinker.” The vertical thinker takes the narrow view; the lateral thinker has
a broader view. After some consideration, the company chose the third solution. It worked. “People became so preoccupied with
looking at themselves (or surreptitiously at others),” said deBono, “that
they no longer noticed the wait for the elevator. The problem was not so much
the lack of elevators as the impatience of the employees.” 2 As
you approach your problems in life, look into the mirror of Scripture! It will
show you the promise of God’s future for you.
What we are suffering now is nothing in comparison for the wonder of the
eternal life that awaits all that believe!
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