FINDING THE CAUSE: FINDING THE SOLUTION
by Mike Robinson
When a new disease appears on the scene, medical researchers move immediately to find a cure. When a marriage relationship begins to crumble, the marriage counsellor attempts to help the couple find a remedy for that disintegration. When a mechanical or electrical device breaks down, the mechanic or technician looks for a solution to the problem. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" but if it is broken, let's do what we can to find the solution.
One of the first steps in finding a solution is to find the cause or causes of the problem. If the cause can be located, a major step has been made towards finding the cure. The escalating use of drugs in our society is now at a level where it is a daily item in our news coverage. We are hearing so much today about needle exchange programmes and shooting galleries. I suspect these are attempts to control or minimize the problem rather than solve it.
But, frankly, I'm puzzled by what I'm not hearing. I keep listening for some report on the underlying causes in the life of a person that would cause them to roll up their sleeve and inject a foreign & potentially lethal substance into their arm. If finding the cause is the first step to solving the problem in other areas of life, surely the same principle ought to apply to this area of human "brokenness". Do we know what those causes are? Has anybody or any group done research into those causes? Are the causes related to lack of purpose? Lack of personal value? Broken relationships? Abusive upbringing?
If these kind of dynamics are the root cause, then it's time to address them. Let's do all we can to help those now caught in the web of addiction but let's get beyond treating the symptom and begin to address the cause so that others in the future don't caught in the same web. The drug culture is just one area of human brokenness. There are many others.
It seems to me that when a life is broken and dysfunctional, it's time to take it back to the Maker so that he can re-create it in a way that it can begin to function again as he intended.
