Questions and Answers

Yesterday as I was driving in my truck at work, I realised something.  It was something very profound and relevant to life.  As I pondered this stunning revelation I thought of writing it down, but decided not to. Of course, by the end of the day I had forgotten it.  If that were the end of the story, this would be the end of this blog entry, and be one of the most pointless entries I have ever made.  However, today I remembered it, and decided to write it down on my blog.

My thought was this: We don't find an answer, we accept an answer.

Which doesn't seem so profound now I just write it down like that.  However, let me take a few words to explain what I mean.  Everybody has questions.  Everyone is looking for answers to their questions.  While there are many answers to each question, we end up settling on one particular answer to accept as our own.

OK, so simple example, what is one plus one?  This is a simple question.  Let me give you a few options to answer it with.

1. 1+1=2
2. 1+1=11
3. 1+1=1
4. 1+1=4

So, which of the three did you accept?  I expect you got the first, but all are valid answers, all have an element of truth.  Lets justify each of the answers

1. It's what teachers tell us in school
2. It's what pupils joke about in school
3. Scriptural marriage: Mark 10:9 They two shall be one flesh
4. My Marriage, Man plus woman equals Man, Woman and 2 kids.

The answer that you accept depends on how you are approaching the question.  While all the answers are applicable in their own way, for the most part the last three are useless for day to day purposes.  So generally we accept the first answer that one and one is two.

There are many other more complex questions that appear in our lives.  How to deal with relationship, how to make the best choice between bad options.  We should be able to find many answers, but the important thing is accepting the right answer.  Or at least accepting the best answer for our situation.

The reason behind...

Today we had visitors come over for lunch after church.  It was very pleasant.  Ron and Pam came over along with Michelle.  With this being my wife's parents and sister, she was telling me how relaxed she was about the whole thing.  This was wonderful news, as there is usually a slightly stressful atmosphere surrounding the visit of my friends to the house.  We had a wonderful time, sharing chicken, salad and a marvelous rhubarb pie made by my mother in law.

However, that conversation in the car opened up a whole new level of understanding regarding what a visit is actually for.  For all these years I had thought that having friends over was an opportunity to eat together, talk together, and maybe even play some music together.  Not so, according to this new information I was able to pick up on between the lines of my wife's relaxed approach to having her own family over.  Normally she would be stressed out for days or even weeks over the arrival of our visitors.  And what would be the cause of this stress?  It was, of course, the real reason behind having visitors over.  Because the real reason is to show them how clean your bathroom is - even the downstairs one that no one ever uses anyway.

A Bathroom - Is it clean enough?