Are you having relational problems, financial problems, health, or emotional problems? Any major problem can be approached in an objective, logical way. Organizing the facts and building an action plan keeps you from taking a passive posture.
1. Accept the seriousness of the problem.
I have a friend recently diagnosed with cancer. My friend's pancreatic cancer is serious. It is not a psychosomatic situation nor can it be properly handled with the denial that some of our Christian Scientist friends practice, nor especially with New Age thinking. As one of my earthy friends said, "you can't cure diarrhea by ignoring it." That may be a little earthy but memorable. The cure to any major problem starts with acceptance.
2. Externalize the problem. I'm indebted to my friend Dr. Kevin Gill for the major contribution to my understanding of illness. When I was covered with penicillin poison I said to him, "Kevin, my body is sick but I'm not." He smiled and said, "You are the kind who gets well. Then he told me that executives are the easiest patients to cure because they have a practice of externalizing their problems, organizing them and working on them objectively. He said the most difficult are those who internalize their problems by thinking the problem is caused by guilt or punishment or unfairness.
I was speaking in Fresno at a men's meeting. I used Kevin's quote and afterward a young badly disabled man came up and thanked me very profusely saying, "For the first time I have some words for how I feel. My body is disabled, I am not. "
Ben Hayden who pastured the First Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga told me that one of his members went through a cure for leukemia and that a national book has been written about his cure. He sent me the book and he also sent me three pounds of letters that Reid had written. Reid's great progress started when he became "a student of my disease." This meant that simply as a third party he was going to study his disease and be objective about it. He was going to externalize the problem rather than internalize it.
3. Use the problem as a learning experience.
I have a friend who when diagnosed with cancer remarked, "I have a new mentor: cancer. In my mind I think of it as Professor C." There's real wisdom in never losing the good from a bad experience. There is seldom, if ever, a bad experience that doesn't contain some good. And as we learn we have the opportunity and responsibility to share with others what we have been taught.
What are you facing today? Is it financial ruin or a marriage that is badly in need of repair? What comes close to overwhelming you? Are you running or facing? I hope that you will find a plan in these quick points about organizing your approach. Accept the problem — don't duck; externalize it — put the problem in the third person; and learn from it — find the lesson in the suffering. The challenge is to take control and not falter…keep moving.
