Problems and Predicaments

Listening to a podcast last night, I became focused on this statement:
“Problems have solutions. Predicaments have outcomes.”
That’s an interesting way to frame something…

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The podcast was in reference to issues now embedded in a pretty broad topic of current world interest, not my typical self-help podcasts – Ha.

To me, this statement is interesting because it reflects the complexity of most things.

Some things truly are problems that can be fairly clearly solved.

I would say predicaments might be situations where if you solve some of the problems you create others. I’m actually reminded now as I write this that many, many years ago, a dear family friend who sadly, died way too young of cancer, once told me in the middle of a heavy discussion –

“Divorce doesn’t solve anything, it is just the exchange of one kind of problem for another.”

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Having been twice divorced now, I would say this is absolutely true. However, it is more nuanced than that, as the statement implies.

Divorce happens when one or both parties decide that problem(s) can be best solved by this action and absolutely, I know that this is true. I’ve seen this play out not only in my life but in countless other lives and situations…sadly.

We humans do not have the luxury of knowing for certain what the exchange of predicaments and outcomes have been when we make difficult decisions, but over time we get glimpses of both the benefits and harms as the outcomes of our predicaments unfold, as well as the outcomes of those in our Divinely Decreed ideal lifelong-covenant-family-children continues to play out.

Thank God for His grace in which we live and struggle daily to walk in hope and faithful trusting that He causes all things to work to the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purposes. (Romans 8:38)

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It was a little late when I was listening to this podcast last night while cleaning some stuff up but I vaguely remember discussion of how to “manage” the various things in this current world-wide predicament. Basically, as in many things in life, things morph into some type of damage control. And in this specific topic, I imagine many players scrambling to stay in this terrible metaphorical game…what does one do in a horrible poker game but to keep on making the move of “call and raise”….they are so “all in” that is all they can imaging continuing to do…because folding on even one round is the “unthinkable.”

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Things like this topic, plus other things from my own personal experiences in life (which I referred above to just some…), probably take the various problems found within predicaments to a whole new problem-solving level.

It just isn’t Checkers.

It’s Chess…

…or it is some Rubik’s cube where someone has rearranged the stickers…thus preventing any perfect alignment and solving of all that is at play…

… or worse yet… it is some terrible game of Poker.

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I believe that those who think well, think conceptually, first.

First the forest, then the trees. Equally good is seeing the trees, and then assembling them into the forest.

One of my aunts on my mother’s side was actually a Champion Checker Player. So maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to state that Checkers is a simplistic game. When she was in a nursing home in her 90’s, people would come to play her, and there was a write-up in the local newspaper, as I recall.

But in a sense, checkers is one of the first games we learn as a child. In its most basic terms and general rules, it involves an amount of knowledge and strategy, but a six-year-old can play. I do know there are some layers of more obscure rules of which I have no knowledge.

I will leave you with this conceptual idea…what if the predicaments of our lives are some metaphorical experience likened to an all-in-one-predicament Checkers-Chess-Rubik’s-Cube-Texas-Hold’Em?

In that case, though we must use all our God-given faculties to walk through this life…at the same time we have no choice but to fold whatever is in our hand to a Faithful Creator.

We do our part, knowing ultimately, outcomes of all problems and predicaments are being formed by His faithful hands.

I Peter 4:19 (The Message)

“So if you find life difficult because you’re doing what God said, take it in stride. Trust him. He knows what he’s doing, and he’ll keep on doing it.”

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