Photo Credit: flickr (Creative Commons)
Do you have those people or things in your life that are like a toothache? The pain won’t go away and you can feel your pulse beating in your gums. Not only is it extremely annoying, but it hurts like crazy.
In one way or another we have all been trained to deal with pain. If you get a toothache you don’t usually rush to the dentist and get it removed. You take Tylenol, put some Ambesol on your gum, or stick an ice pack on your check.
What should we do with these toothaches?
Dr. Henry Cloud says in his book Nine Things You Simply Must Do, that it’s necessary to pull that tooth.
Why?
- They are a brain drain. Successful people deal with energy drains quickly, not slowly. When you have pain that means it’s a signal of a deeper problem. Pain tells us something is wrong. God gives us the knowledge to do something about it. Consider doing an inventory of your life and asking yourself what the brain drains around you are.
- How do I deal with the brain drain? Make sure it’s the right place and the right time. Try your best to take care of the problem before the crisis comes and the pain becomes unbearable.
- Where are you spending your time? Are good things come from the places you are? If you are still on level one, it’s time to move up to the big leagues. Those playing in level two realize quickly that something bad is going on in their situation. If it’s a relationship for example, they don’t toss it aside, but they deal with the brain drain quickly and get to work on the problem.
- What if it’s not working? Make sure you have confronted the problem quickly and to the point to try and resolve the toothache. If that doesn’t work, bring others in to help. If the problem is a person, use the Matthew 18:16 principle.
- Do I let go? There is a time, after you have done step four, and there are no other objective reasons, making the problem unresolvable, then you can let it go. Pull the tooth.
Cloud says “The best way to fix a problem is to not have it.”
Do you struggle to confront the problems in your life before they become toothaches?