Several years ago, I saw this article in a church bulletin without the author’s name being given. Over the years, the principle set forth has helped me so many times in dealing with problems. I hope that it will help you as much as it has me. My only regret is that I do not know who wrote it.
Everybody has problems—that’s life—there is no escaping it. But some people seem to have greater problems than others; at least, they think they do. All of us have known of people who are always deluged in troubles of one sort or another. Since Christians are to “bear one another’s burdens” and to “weep with those who weep,” I have often tried to share the troubles of others and to help them find some solutions.
In this “fellowship of suffering,” I have discovered that most of us have a tendency to borrow problems that are not really ours. We worry about troubles whose solutions are beyond our reach. We try to assume responsibilities which actually belong to others. Thus, our problems are unnecessarily magnified. We need to find the lines delineating our problems, distinguishing ours from others.
When the used car dealer cheats you and lies to you, that is his problem, not yours! Your problem is to continue to be honest and fair to him, despite his dishonesty. Your problem is how to react to his dishonesty. If you retaliate by being dishonest with him because he was dishonest with you, you have fallen into the same trap and you are no better than he is!
When a group of fussy old ladies gossip about you, that is their problem, not yours. You have little or no control over what these ladies do and say, but you do have control over what you do and say. Your responsibility is to continue to be kind to them, even if they are unkind to you. If you gossip about them because they have gossiped about you, you have slipped into the same cesspool they are in.
It is my responsibility to teach and warn and exhort people to quit doing wrong and start doing what they should. If they ignore me or laugh at me, that is their problem, not mine. My problem is to patiently continue to try to help them—to love them though they hate me. If I grow angry with them because they are angry with me, I have become a hypocrite and have betrayed the very thing I have tried to teach them.
My responsibility is to try to know and to teach God’s word, patiently and plainly and kindly. What my hearers do with this word is their problem and God’s; it is not mine! The power of God’s word is not in me, but in God. If some people are not affected by God’s word, what can I do to improve on it? To artificially cram it down another person’s throat is to deny that person’s individual freedom and to make him an artificial disciple and to tacitly deny my confidence in the power of God’s word. My problem is to teach; the rest is up to God and my hearers.
When hard times come, your problem is to continue to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness first, and to work for your physical needs second. Jesus promised that if you would put first things first, “all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). Economic problems and threats of hard times are not your chief worry; that is Jesus’ problem. If you can trust Jesus at all, you can trust Him on this promise, and if you trust Him in this, then you have entrusted the problems of your physical as well as your spiritual needs to Him. It is now His problem.
Now, what did you say your problem was?