Please permit me to share with you some sage advice that certainly can change the entire course of your life. This discussion may well be a great “turning point” in your personal life history,…if you understand it, will learn from it, and then use it over the course of the remainder of your life here on earth.

From shortly after birth to shortly before death, you are always going to first experience and then secondly have to battle resolving “problems” that come into your life over the entire time you are alive. Problems are just a simple fact of life for all human beings. No one can exist here on this side of heaven without having to deal with and resolve personal problems.

Problems came into our world through the “Fall of Man” in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned against their Creator God and were disobedient to His instructions. Whether we like it or not,…problems are a natural consequence to the disobedience by mankind to God’s Laws. They are a part of human nature which happens to be one of the three main things that never change within the course of human life on this earth. The three unchangeable things within the continuing life of mankind are God, Sin, and Human Nature.

So like it or not, personal problems and their attendant resolution will be with us here on earth for as long as we ourselves live here. Problems, however, are unique within the life of mankind. They have an inherent ability to impact and influence us individually in either a positive or negative manner and way, totally depending on the mental attitude of each individual.

There is a strange and always applicable truth of life that says: You will get in life that which you expect to get,…that which you mentally dwell upon,…that which you unceasingly pray about having,…and that which you openly and regularly confess with your own mouth. Your expectations will always be in concert with your positive or negative personal mental attitude. Either way, positive or negative, you are in complete control of your own mental attitude and therefore have the ability to allow, guide, and direct the various problems that you encounter while living your life to become a source of misery and suffering or a source of joy and happiness. It is all up to you!

Problems can and will advance you in life, if you allow them to do so. It is all in the manner and way that you understand and expect such recurring problems to impact you.

The secret to you benefitting from the problems that occur in your life is whether you recognize the equal or greater benefit that accrues to you as a result of any and/or every problem that you encounter. The equal or greater benefit is always there. The impact on you depends on whether you react to a given problem or you manage that problem to guide its impact into positive production for you.

Once you learn to stay calm, cool, and collected and begin to manage the resolution of any and all problems that come into your life instead of losing control of your emotions and “flying off the handle” in your knee-jerk reaction to the problem, you then will start becoming a better person, a better problem-solver, and a happier and productive individual.

Whenever a problem of any size or significance comes into your life and forces you to deal with it,…the calm, purposed, and effective resolution of the problem, to your own satisfaction, has to be formulated and meted out using your own mental attitude, talents and abilities, and personal work ethics. Only by staying in complete control of your own thoughts, emotions, attitude, and work efforts will you be able to seek the hidden personal rewards lying within the problem itself. When you really know in advance precisely what your life’s purpose is and you know what rewards are waiting for you when you fulfill your life’s purpose,…you will carefully go about the positive resolution of the existing problems you are facing. In so doing you will effectively be “turning your lemons into your own lemonade.”

I once read a story that effectively demonstrates my points of this discussion. Permit me to share it with you. You would do well for yourself to remember this story and always apply its teaching.

A story please……..

There was a young and impetuous strong-willed woman who one afternoon was loudly complaining to her father about her own personal problems and how hard her life was to live.

Growing tired of the habitual and loudly voiced complaints from his daughter, the father decided that the situation presented a great opportunity for him to give his child a real “life lesson” about managing her personal problems and changing them from misery to blessing.

“Come with me,” he calmly said. “I want to show you something.” He led her into the kitchen where he put three separate pots of water on top of the stove to heat. Meanwhile, using the proper utensils, he cut up some fresh raw carrots and put them into the first pot to boil. He then placed into the heating water of the second pot two raw eggs still in the shells. Into the third pot of water, he poured some ground coffee. He then contently watched all three pots of water come to a boil. The water in the pots boiled for about ten minutes time. After this “cooking time” expired, the father strained the carrots into one empty bowl, he peeled the two eggs and put them into another empty bowl, and then he poured the freshly brewed strained coffee into an empty cup. Then he placed two bowls and a cup directly in front of his somewhat irritated daughter.

“What’s all this supposed to mean?” she impatiently demanded of her father.

“Each of these items can teach us something about the way we handle adversity in our personal lives,” he answered. “The carrots started out hard but the boiling water turned them mushy. The eggs went into the water very fragile but came out hard and rubbery. The coffee, on the other hand, changed the water into something better.”

“Sweetheart,” he lovingly said, “you can choose how you will respond to your own problems that you encounter in life. You can let them make you weak. You can let them make you hard. Or you can use them to create something beneficial to yourself and to others around you….It is all up to you!”

We are told within the pages of the Holy Scripture that each and every day will have problems enough of their own. We are also told not to worry about tomorrow’s problems for they will surely come. God’s instruction to mankind is to positively and constructively deal with today’s problems. We are to do everything we do all to and all for the glory of God the Father.

What will you make out of your problems today?

Leaders Gotta Lead……………….