The Amish Voice
God has given us specifc informaton on how
to handle the difcultes of life. All believers
are surrounded by persons, places, events,
situatons and problems. As we live and move
among people and problems, God has told us
what we should be doing.
Instead of coming to God with our problem,
we ofen get caught up with the problem and
caught up in the problem. Just as with a tor-
nado, we allow the problem to suck us up
into itself and we are overwhelmed by it. We
get
overly
and
excessively
concerned about
someone (spouse, parent, in-law, child),
about some place (home, work, church) or
about something (a problem at home, an ill-
ness, the loss of a friend, etc.). All of our
eforts and energies are concentrated and
focused on that one problem
to the neglect
of the whole situaton.
Please take a look at the black dot on the
sheet of paper:
The spot is quite easy to see
on the white background. It
stands right out. If you were
to hold it up to someone
and say, "What do you see?”
s/he would probably say, "I
see an ink spot!" But the
spot is only one small part of
that sheet of paper. There is
much more than just a spot.
The problem is that we tend
to see only the spot and
nothing else, and the litle spot becomes big-
ger and bigger to us.
How many people live on your road? Entre
county? Your state? How does this number
compare to 6.3 billion people in the world
today? Is not the number of people who live
on your road a tny speck compared to the
whole?
Is there a problem in your home with your
family? How many homes and families are
there in the world? Was an unkind word spo-
ken to you today? How does that compare
with all the words spoken all around the
world? Was an unfriendly look sent your way?
What is that compared to all the many un-
pleasant looks worldwide? When we begin to
see the whole picture, then our litle problem
is only a very tny speck!
The problem is that I can so easily get all
wrapped up with ME, MYSELF and I, and I
forget that there is some-
thing more than ME, MY-
SELF and I. It is always "my
church, my opinion, my
schedule, my spouse, my
parents, my grandmother,
my soap, my bed, my leter,
my trip in the buggy, my
________________, and my
_________________."
The world is more than just
ME! It is BIG and IMMENSE
and your part of the whole
is but a tny litle microscopic speck! Instead
of looking at only one piece of the puzzle, we
must learn to look at the WHOLE PICTURE,
which is made up of thousands of pieces.
For example, you may receive a leter in the
mail, which
to you
may seem like the most
important event in the world! This leter total-
ly occupies your
mind so that
there is no room
for anything else.
It is all you think
of and you lose
your proper per-
spectve. The
whole world becomes ONE BIG LETTER IN THE
MAIL! If someone were to ask, "What's going
on today in the world?" you would immedi-
ately cry out, "I RECEIVED A LETTER!" A very
minor
event
(compared to the whole) has
now become a very
major event
, and that
leter becomes the only thing you see. We do
this all the tme with many diferent things.
And when this happens…
1. I lose my
confdence
in God. My prob-
lem has become very big and my God
has become very small.
2. I lose the
confession
of my lips. I can no
longer say, "For this I have Jesus!" It is
not on my lips and it is not in my heart.
All I can say is, "My problem has me!"
3. I lose my peace and joy and replace it
with worry and fear.
PO Box 128, 575 State Route 250 N, Savannah OH 44874 Office: (419) 962-1515
March 2011
How Do I Deal With Every-Day Problems?
—Joe Keim