Power to Solve Personal Problems

Power to Solve Personal Problems


I WANT TO tell you about some fortunate people who found the right solution to their problems.


They followed a simple but highly practical plan and in each case the outcome was a happy and successful one. These people are in no sense different than you. They had the same problems and difficulties that you have, but they found a formula which helped them to get the right answers to the difficult questions facing them. This same formula applied by you can get similar results.

First, let me tell you the story of a husband and wife, long-time friends of mine. For years Bill, the husband, worked hard until he finally reached the rung next to the top of the ladder in his company. He was in line for the presidency of the firm and felt certain that upon retirement of the president he would be advanced to that position. There was no apparent reason why his ambition should not be realized, for by ability, training, and experience he was qualified. Besides, he had been led to believe he was to be chosen.

However, when the appointment was made he was by-passed. A man was brought in from the outside to fill the post.

I arrived in his city just after the blow had fallen. The wife, Mary, was in an especially vindictive state of mind. At dinner she bitterly outlined all that she would "like to tell them." The intense disappointment, humiliation, frustration, focused in a burning anger which she poured out to her husband and me. Bill, on the contrary, was quiet. Obviously hurt, disappointed, and bewildered, he took it courageously. Being essentially a gentle person, it was not surprising that he failed to become angry or violent in his reaction. Mary wanted him to resign immediately. She urged him to "tell them off and tell them plenty, then quit." He seemed disinclined to take this action, saying perhaps it was for the best and he would go along with the new man and help him in any way that he could.

That attitude admittedly might be difficult, but he had worked for the company for so long that he would not be happy elsewhere, and, besides, he felt that in the secondary position the company could continue to use him.

The wife then turned to me and asked what I would do. I told her that I would, like herself, undoubtedly feel disappointed and hurt, but that I would try not to allow hate to creep in, for animosity not only corrodes the soul, but disorganizes thought processes as well.

I suggested that what we needed was Divine guidance, a wisdom beyond ourselves in this situation. There was such an emotional content in the problem that we might possibly be incapable of thinking the matter through objectively and rationally. I suggested, therefore, that we have a few minutes of quietness, no one saying anything, that we sit quietly in an attitude of fellowship and prayer, turning our thoughts to the One who said, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Mt 18:20) I pointed out that there were three of us, and if we sought to achieve the spirit of being gathered in "His" name, He would also be present to quiet us and show us what to do.

It was not easy for the wife to accommodate herself to the mood suggested, but basically she was an intelligent, high-type person, and she joined in the plan. Presently, after a few quiet minutes, I suggested that we join hands, and even though we were in a public restaurant I would quietly offer a prayer. In the prayer I asked for guidance. I requested peace of mind for Bill and Mary, and I went a step further and even asked God’s blessing upon the new appointee. I also prayed that Bill would be able to fit in with the new administration and give more effective service than before.

After the prayer we sat silent for a time, then with a sigh the wife said, "Yes, I guess that is the way to do it. When I knew you were coming to dinner with us I feared that you would tell us to take a Christian position on this. Frankly, I didn’t feel like doing that. I was boiling inwardly, but of course I realize that the right answer to this problem is to be found through that approach. I will try it faithfully, as difficult as it may be." She smiled wanly, but the animus was gone. From time to time I checked with my friends, and found that while everything was not entirely as they desired, they gradually became fairly contented under the new arrangement. They were able to overcome their disappointment and ill will. Bill even confided to me that he liked the new man and in a way enjoyed working with him. He told me that the new president often called him in for consultation and seemed to lean on him.

Mary was nice to the president’s wife, and in fact they went to the fullest extent to be co-operative.

Two years passed. One day I arrived in their city and telephoned them.

"Oh, I am so excited I can hardly speak," Mary said.

I commented that anything that could put her in that state must be of unusual importance.

Ignoring this remark, she cried, "Oh, the most wonderful thing has happened. Mr. So-and-So," naming the president, "has been selected by another company at a big promotion for a special job which will take him out of our organization into a much better position and"—she poised the question—"guess what? Bill has just been notified that he is now president of this company. Come over right away and let the three of us give thanks together."

Later, as we sat together. Bill said, "Do you know, I am beginning to realize that Christianity isn’t theoretical after all. We have solved a problem according to well-defined spiritually scientific principles. I shudder to think," he said, "of the terrible mistake we would have made had we not gone at this problem according to the formula contained in the teachings of Jesus."

"Who in the world," he asked, "is responsible for the silly idea that Christianity is impractical? Never again will I let a problem come up without attacking it in just the way the three of us solved this one."

Well, several years have passed, and Mary and Bill have had other problems, and to each of them they have applied this same technique, invariably with good results. By the "put it in God’s hands" method they have learned to solve their problems right. Another effective technique in problem solving is the simple device of conceiving of God as a partner. One of the basic truths taught by the Bible is that God is with us. In fact, Christianity begins with that concept, for when Jesus Christ was born He was called Immanuel, meaning "God with us."

Christianity teaches that in all the difficulties, problems, and circumstances of this life God is close by. We can talk to Him, lean upon Him, get help from Him, and have the inestimable benefit of His interest, support, and help. Practically everybody believes in a general way that this is true, and many have experienced the reality of this faith.

In getting correct solutions to your problems, however, it is necessary to go a step further than believing this, for one must actually practice the idea of presence. Practice believing that God is as real and actual as your wife, or your business partner, or your closest friend. Practice talking matters over with Him; believe that He hears and gives thought to your problem. Assume that He impresses upon your mind through consciousness the proper ideas and insights necessary to olve your problems. Definitely believe that in these solutions there will be no error, but that you will be guided to actions according to truth which results in right outcomes.

A businessman stopped me one day following a Rotary Club meeting in a Western city at which I had made a speech. He told me that something he had read in one of my newspaper columns had, as he put it, "completely revolutionized his attitude and saved his business."

Naturally I was interested and pleased that any little thing I had said would bring about such a splendid result.

"I had been having quite a difficult time in my business," he said. "In fact, it was beginning to be a very serious question as to whether I could save my business. A series of unfortunate circumstances together with market conditions, regulatory procedures, and dislocations to the economy of the country generally effected my line profoundly. I read this article of yours in which you advanced the idea of taking God in as a partner. I think you used the phrase, ‘effect a merger with God.’"

"When I first read that it seemed to me a rather ‘cracked-brain idea.’ How could a man on earth, a human being, take God as a partner? Besides, I had always thought of God as a vast being, so much bigger than man that I was like an insect in His sight, and yet you were saying that I should take Him as a partner. The idea seemed preposterous. Then a friend gave me one of your books and I found similar ideas scattered all through it. You told actual life stories about people who followed this advice. They all seemed to be sensible people, but still I was unconvinced. I always had the idea that ministers are idealistic theorists, that they know nothing about business and practical affairs. So I sort of ‘wrote you off,’ " he said with a smile.

"However, a funny thing happened one day. I went to my office so depressed that I actually thought perhaps the best thing for me to do would be to blow my brains out and get away from all these problems which seemed completely to floor me. Then into my mind came this idea of taking God as a partner. I shut the door, sat in my chair, and put my head on my arms on the desk. I might as well confess to you that I hadn’t prayed more than a dozen times in as many years. However, I certainly did pray on this occasion. I told the Lord that I had heard this idea about taking Him in as a partner, that I wasn’t actually sure what it meant, or how one did it. I told Him I was sunk, that I couldn’t get any ideas except panicky ones, that I was baffled, bewildered, and very discouraged. I said, ‘Lord, I can’t offer You much in the way of a partnership, but please join with me and help me. I don’t know how You can help me, but I want to be helped. So I now put my business, myself, my family, and my future in Your hands. Whatever You say goes. I don’t even know how You are going to tell me what to do, but I am ready to hear and will follow Your advice if You will make it clear.’"

"Well," he continued, "that was the prayer. After I finished praying I sat at my desk. I guess I expected something miraculous to happen, but nothing did. However, I did suddenly feel quiet and rested. I actually had a feeling of peacefulness. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred that day nor that night, but next day when I went to my office I had a brighter and happier feeling than usual. I began to feel confident that things would turn out right. It was hard to explain why I felt that way. Nothing was any different. In fact, you might even say things were a shade worse, but I was different, at least a little different."

"This feeling of peacefulness stayed with me and I began to feel better. I kept praying each day and talked to God as I would to a partner. They were not churchy prayers—just plain man-to-man talk. Then one day in my office, all of a sudden an idea popped up in my mind. It was like toast popping up in a toaster. I said to myself, ‘Well, what do you know about that?’ for it was something that had never occurred to me, but I knew instantly that it was just the method to follow. Why I had never thought of it before I haven’t the slightest idea. My mind was too tied
up, I guess. I hadn’t been functioning mentally."

"I immediately followed the hunch." Then he stopped. "No, it was no hunch, it was my partner talking to me. I immediately put this idea into operation and things began to roll. New ideas began to flow out of my mind, and despite conditions I began to get the business back on an even keel. Now the general situation has improved considerably, and I’m out of the woods."

Then he said, "I don’t know anything about preaching or about writing the kind of books you write, or any books for that matter, but let me tell you this—whenever you get a chance to talk to businessmen tell them that if they will take God as a partner in their business they will get more good ideas than they can ever use, and they can turn those ideas into assets. I don’t merely mean money," he said, "although a way to get a good return on your investment, I believe, is to get God-guided ideas. But tell them that the God-partnership method is the way to get their problems solved right."

This incident is just one of many similar demonstrations of the law of Divine-human relationship working it’s self out in practical affairs. I cannot emphasize too strongly the effectiveness of this technique of problem solving. It has produced amazing results in the many cases coming under my observation.

In the very necessary business of solving personal problems, it is important, first of all, to realize that the power to solve them correctly is inherent within you. Second, it is necessary to work out and actualize a plan. Spiritual and emotional planlessness is a definite reason for the failure of many people to meet their personal problems successfully.

A business executive told me that he puts his dependence upon the "emergency powers of the human brain." It is his theory, and a sound one, that a human being possesses extra powers that may be tapped and utilized under emergency situations. In the ordinary conduct of day-by-day living, these emergency powers lie dormant, but under extraordinary circumstances the personality is able, when called upon, to deliver extra power if needed.

A person who develops a working faith does not allow these powers to lie dormant, but in proportion to his faith brings many of them into play in connection with normal activity. This explains why some people demonstrate greater force than others in daily requirements and in a crisis. They have made it a habit normally to draw upon powers that would otherwise be ignored except in some dramatic necessity.

When a difficult situation arises, do you know how to meet it? Have you any clearly defined plan for solving unusually difficult problems as they develop? Many people proceed on a hit-or-miss method, and, sadly enough, most frequently they miss. I cannot urge too strongly the importance of a planned use of your greater powers in meeting problems.

In addition to the method of two or three praying together in the "surrender of God" technique and that of establishing a partnership with God and the importance of a plan to tap and utilize emergency inner powers, there is still another tremendous technique—that of practicing faith attitudes. I read the Bible for years before it ever dawned on me that it was trying to tell me that if I would have faith—and really have it—that I could overcome all of my difficulties, meet every situation, rise above every defeat, and solve all of the perplexing problems of my life. The
day that realization dawned on me was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of my life.

Undoubtedly many people will read this book who have never gotten the faith idea of living. But I hope you will get it now, for the faith technique is without question one of the most powerful truths in the world having to do with the successful conduct of human life.

Throughout the Bible the truth is emphasized again and again that "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed . . . nothing shall be impossible unto you." (Mt 17:20) The Bible means this absolutely, factually, completely, and literally. It isn’t an illusion, it isn’t a fantasy. It is not an illustration, nor a symbol, nor a metaphor, but the absolute fact—"Faith, even as a grain of mustard seed," will solve your problems, any of your problems, all of your problems, if you believe it and practice it. "According to your faith, be it unto you." (Mt 9:29) The requirement is
faith, and directly in proportion to the faith that you have and use will you get results. Little faith gives you little results, medium faith gives you medium results, great faith gives you great results. But in the generosity of Almighty God, if you have only the faith symbolized by a grain of mustard seed, it will do amazing things in solving your problems.

For example, let me tell you the thrilling story of my friends Maurice and Mary Alice Flint. I became acquainted with them when a previous book of mine, A Guide to Confident Living, was condensed in Liberty magazine. Maurice Flint at that time was failing, and failing badly. Not only was he failing in his job, but as a person as well. He was filled with fear and resentment and was one of the most negative persons I have ever encountered. He was endowed with a nice personality and at heart was a wonderful fellow, but he bad simply messed life up as he himself admitted.

He read the condensation of the book in which is emphasized the idea of "mustard-seed faith." At this time he was living in Philadelphia with his family, a wife and two sons. He telephoned my church in New York, but for some reason did not make contact with my secretary. I mention this to show his already changing mental attitude for normally he would never have called the second time, because it was his pathetic habit to give up everything after a feeble effort, but in this instance he persevered until he got through and secured the information relative to the time of church services. The next Sunday he drove from Philadelphia to New York with his family to attend church, which he continued to do even in the most inclement weather.

In an interview later he told me his life story in full detail and asked if I thought he could ever make anything of himself. The problems of money, of situations, of debts, of the future, and primarily of himself were so complicated and he was so overwhelmed with difficulty that he regarded the situation as completely hopeless.

I assured him that if he would get himself personally straightened out and get his mental attitudes attuned to God’s pattern of thought, and if he would learn and utilize the technique of faith, all of his problems could be solved.

One attitude that both he and his wife had to clear out of their minds was that of resentment. They were dully mad at everybody and acutely so at some. They were in their present unhappy condition, so they reasoned in their diseased thoughts, not because of any failure on their part but because of "dirty deals" other people had given them. They actually used to lie in bed at night telling each other what they would like to say to other people by way of insult. In this unhealthy atmosphere they tried to find sleep and rest, but with no successful result.

Maurice Flint really took to the faith idea. It gripped him as nothing ever had. His reactions were weak, of course, for his will power was disorganized. At first he was unable to think with any power or force due to his long habit of negativism, but he held on tenaciously, even desperately, to the idea that if you have "faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing is impossible." With what force he did have he absorbed faith. Of course, his capacity to have faith gradually increased as he practiced it.

One night he went into the kitchen where his wife was washing dishes. He said, "The faith idea is comparatively easy on Sunday in church, but I can’t hold it. It fades. I was thinking that if I could carry a mustard seed in my pocket, I could feel it when I begin to weaken and that would help me to have faith." He then asked his wife, "Do we have any of those mustard seeds, or are they just something mentioned in the Bible? Are there mustard seeds today?"

She laughed and said, "I have some right here in a pickle jar."

She fished one out and gave it to him. "Don’t you know, Maurice," Mary Alice said, "that you don’t need an actual mustard seed. That is only the symbol of an idea." "I don’t know about that," he replied. "It says mustard seed in the Bible and that’s what I want. Maybe I need the symbol to get faith."

He looked at it in the palm of his hand and said wonderingly, "Is that all the faith I need—just a small amount like this tiny grain of mustard seed?" He held it for a while and then put it in his pocket, saying, "If I can just get my fingers on that during the day, it will keep me working on this faith idea." But the seed was so small he lost it, and he would go back to the pickle jar for another one, only to lose it also. One day when another seed became lost in his pocket, the idea came to him, Why couldn’t he put the grain of mustard seed into a plastic ball? He could carry this ball in his pocket or put it on his watch chain always to remind him that if he had "faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing would be impossible unto him."

He consulted a supposed expert in plastics and asked how to insert a mustard seed in a plastic ball so there would be no bubble. The "expert" said it could not be done for the reason that it had never been done, which of course was no reason at all. Flint had enough faith by this time to believe that if he had faith "even as a grain of mustard seed" he could put a mustard seed in a plastic sphere. He went to work, and kept at it for weeks, and finally succeeded. He made up several pieces of costume jewelry: necklace, bow pin, key chain, bracelet, and sent them to me. They were beautiful, and on each gleamed the translucent sphere with the mustard seed within. With each one was a card which bore the title, "Mustard Seed Remembrancer." The card also told how this piece of jewelry could be used; how the mustard seed would remind the wearer that "if he had faith, nothing was impossible."

He asked me if I thought these articles could be merchandised. I was a bit doubtful, I must admit, and showed them to Grace Oursler, consulting editor of Guideposts magazine. She took the jewelry to our mutual friend, Mr. Walter Hoving, president of Bonwit Teller Department Store, one of the greatest executives in the country. He at once saw the possibilities in this project. Imagine my astonishment and delight when in the New York papers a few days later was a two-column advertisement reading, "Symbol of faith—a genuine mustard seed enclosed in sparkling glass makes a bracelet with real meaning." And in the advertisement was the Scripture passage, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed . . . nothing shall be impossible unto you." (Mt 17:20) These articles sold like hot cakes. Now hundreds of great department stores and shops throughout the country find difficulty keeping them in stock.

Mr. and Mrs. Flint have a factory in a Midwestern city producing Mustard Seed Remembrancers. Curious, isn’t it—a failure goes to church and hears a text out of the Bible and creates a great business. Perhaps you had better listen more intently to the reading of the Bible and the sermon the next time you go to church. Perhaps you, too, will get an idea that will rebuild not only your life but your business as well.

Faith in this instance created a business for the manufacturers and distributors of a product that has helped and will help thousands upon thousands of people. So popular and effective is it that others have copied it, but the Flint Mustard Seed Remembrance is the original. The story of the lives that have been changed by this little device is one of the most romantic spiritual stories of this generation. But the effect on Maurice and Mary Alice Flint—the transformation of their lives, the remaking of their characters, the releasing of their personalities—this is a thrilling demonstration of faith power. No longer are they negative—they are positive. No more are they defeated—they are victorious. They no longer hate. They have overcome resentment and their hearts are filled with love. They are new people with a new outlook and a new sense of power. They are two of the most inspiring people I ever knew.

Ask Maurice and Mary Alice Flint how to get a problem solved right. They will tell you—"Have faith—really have faith." And believe me, they know.

If as you read this story you have said to yourself negatively (and that is being negative), "The Flints were never so bad off as I am," let me tell you that I have scarcely ever seen anybody as badly off as were the Flints. And let me say further that regardless of however desperate your situation may be, if you will use the four techniques outlined in this chapter, as did the Flints, you, too, can get your problem solved right.

In this chapter I have tried to show various methods for solving a problem. Now I wish to give ten simple suggestions as a concrete technique to use generally in solving your problems:

1. Believe that for every problem there is a solution.

2. Keep calm. Tension blocks the flow of thought power. Your brain cannot operate efficiently under stress. Go at your problem easy-like.

3. Don’t try to force an answer. Keep your mind relaxed so that the solution will open up and become clear.

4. Assemble all the facts impartially, impersonally, and judicially.

5. List these facts on paper. This clarifies your thinking, bringing the various elements into orderly system. You see as well as think. The problem becomes objective, not subjective.

6. Pray about your problem, affirming that God will flash illumination into your mind.

7. Believe in and seek God’s guidance on the promise of the 73rd Psalm, "Thou wilt guide me by thy counsel."

8. Trust in the faculty of insight and intuition.

9. Go to church and let your subconscious work on the problem as you attune to the mood of worship. Creative spiritual thinking has amazing power to give "right" answers.

10. If you follow these steps faithfully, then the answer that develops in your mind, or comes to pass, is the right answer to your problem.

(Source: Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale)