PROBLEMS, CATALYSTS OF INVENTIONS

WISDOM NUGGET: "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all".

Imagine a world where there are no problems; in that kind of world, I can assure you that the word INVENTION will never exist there. All through the pages of history, we are inundated with the gallant strides of great inventors, whose inventions have made our world aglow.

 Truth be told however, in the absence of the problems that arose against humanity from time to time, the names of those inventors would never have been known. Amazingly, lots of those problems existed for so long until someone was daring enough to confront them. Those confrontations birthed great solutions, which we today refer to as inventions.

It was 1818 in France, and Louis, a boy of 9, was sitting in his father's workshop. The father was a harness-maker and the boy loved to watch his father work the leather. "Someday Father," said Louis, "I want to be a harness-maker, just like you." "Why not start now?" said the father. He took a piece of leather and drew a design on it. "Now, my son," he said, "take the hole- puncher and a hammer and follow this design, but be careful that you don't hit your hand." Excited, the boy began to work, but when he hit the hole-puncher; it flew out of his hand and pierced his eye! He lost the sight of that eye immediately. Later, sight in the other eye failed. Louis was now totally blind. A few years later, Louis was sitting in the family garden when a friend handed him a pine cone. As he ran his sensitive fingers over the cone, an idea came to him. He became enthusiastic and began to create an alphabet of raised dots on paper so that the blind could feel and interpret what was written. Thus, Louis Braille opened up a whole new world for the blind, all because of an accident!

In our key scripture above, Paul, the man who made the statement above was actually in chains, yet he calls it "light affliction". But more interestingly, he said, it is working an ETERNAL and far GREATER WEIGHT OF GLORY.

That is why the names of these great inventors will eternally be remembered, because of the problems they solved for humanity. It is popularly said that necessity is the mother of all inventions. Anthony Robbins couldn't have put it in a better light when he said, "Every problem is a gift - without problems we would not grow."