149 Word Problems

Meaning: “conveying a significance that is not directly expressed . . .”

Remember those dreaded word problems in math? You know. The kind that said, “A car is traveling at 5 miles per hour for 12 minutes. How far has it traveled?”

I’m already pressing my hand to my forehead in feverish deliberation! How about you?

Well, finding complex meanings can be a mirror image of this predicament—lots of information but no answers. Thankfully there are ways out of this predicament, whether the subject is math or meaning.

Consider this: The math student can take information and plug it into available formulas superbly crafted by great minds to deliver up reliable answers. In this case, the formula of choice would rightly be d = rt, or distance equals rate multiplied by time. The information says d (distance) is the answer sought, r is 5 mi/hr, and time is 12 minutes or 1/5^th of an hour. Plugging the info into the equation d = 5 mi/hr x 1/5^th hr, the answer is quickly acquired: 5 divided by 5 = 1 and the hours cancel each other out, LEAVING—THE ANSWER: 1 mile. Whoopee! It worked! And, yes, such an excellent equation will offer up the right answer every time—that is every time one uses the excellent formula and multiplies, divides and cancels rightly.

Same goes with meaning! The excellent formula? Please, please, note here, Gentle Reader, this formula comes from the pages of The Holy Bible, from God! I, the believer, need look no further. And so I won’t. Follow me in this thinking: From Scripture, wisdom is composed of understanding (u). Understanding is created by knowledge (k), where knowledge consists of information, discernment and clarity interacting with meaning (m)! Therefore, if I want to find meaning I will write my formula like this: Subject: Wisdom; Formula: u = k + m. Then I will solve for meaning like this: m = u – k.

Now my formula says meaning equals understanding with knowledge removed. So anytime I find myself saying, “I understand,” you can bet your bottom dollar that I have combined meaning and knowledge to come up with that understanding (whether I realize it or not) and that further, it should not take me long to untangle the basics from the concept (that is the knowledge from the understanding) and voila! I will have the meaning. And if I repeat this exercise often enough, I will get the hang of it!

In last blog, I described how embracing complexity (understanding) involved establishing essentials (knowledge) and then adding in derived meanings. Yet this whole premise hangs on the merits of the formula. If I were to concoct some formula of my own, or select some formula from some misled fanatic or raving lunatic, my solutions would not be very useful to you or me. Agreed? That’s why I use God’s formulas. With His formulas my solutions are GOOD because He is Good, no matter what the subject. That’s if I derive them rightly, of course, by the power of Holy Spirit.

For example, I recently saw a Nature program on PBS about the Andes Mountains in Chile.

The pictures were indescribably stunning. The grandeur, sweep and glory of the extremes of terrain and climate were breathtaking. Watching vapors condense into beads of water, later freeze, thaw, and then evaporate in steaming, dense billows all in one place and on the same day—well, it was like watching God breathe the in-and-out of life over the earth. The magnificence of the creation spoke explicitly to me of His presence, His authority, His power, His person, and the complexity of His and all being.

This understanding, this seeing of God behind it all, came to me through the visual impact of the extraordinary pictures. Because I have a habit of using God's formula for understanding, this extra-Biblical information spontaneously blended in my mind with Scriptural information on the nature of the physical world to use as knowledge in God's formula. Then I consciously combined this blended knowledge with the simultaneous and clearly discerned meaning (to me, by my reasoned choice and the influence of Holy Spirit and Scriptural truth: Romans 1:20, NKJV) that no human intellect or random chance or anything else but a supreme intellect, a divine being—specifically, our Triune God—could detail and initiate such a sublime orchestration of majesties as I had observed in those mountains. I do not exaggerate! I’ve studied Thermodynamics and know how complex and exquisitely wrought are the transmutations of liquid to solid to steam (more outside information to carefully use as knowledge in the formula).

Thus, thoughtfully selecting all extra-Biblical knowledge and using it in God's formula and holding my understandings accountable to God, the meaning I derived proved out to correspond with God's meanings in Scripture, and good findings to live by. Thankfully, Scripture also tells me that I, the believer, can rest assured that God will always help me understand the understandable and, at the same time, help me learn to accept and enjoy the great mysteries that remain His and His alone to know until I go “home.” Scripture says, “Now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12, NKJV).” And that’s okay, Dear Reader, He is the Creator and I am the created. It’s as it should be.

But until then, I have Scripture to supply my formulas, my understanding, a wealth of knowledge to complement and qualify extra-Biblical knowledge, and rich meanings; all these to give me wisdom for life’s Word Problems. Thanks be to God!

To be continued . . .