Focus On The Solution Not The Problem - written by Alfred (a short story for kids)

Once upon a time in a place called Brooklyn, New York; there lived a young Christian African – American man everyone called Politics. And No, he wasn’t into politics. He was a rapper but anytime he rapped he didn’t talk profanity or any of the nonsense or irrelevant material that come out of the mouths of typical rappers. He always rapped about important issues and as a result folks started calling him Politics.

Politics had major problems through. He was buried under a mountain of bills. He didn’t have a record deal in-spite of all he did (that wasn’t outside God’s word) to get one. And quite frankly, it didn’t took like Politics would be getting any record deal anytime soon even though there was nothing wrong with his rap skills.

From rent, to folks in the neighborhood, to the increase of crime in the neighborhood; things were really going from bad to worse.

One day after a show that Politics put together, a street preacher walked up to him and told him that he likes the fact that there is no profanity in his rap songs and that he had seen Politics serval times before in a local church. He told Politics that his major problem is that he focuses too much on the problem, and magnifies it instead of focusing on the solution and working out something from the solution hence he would always be a slave to the problem.

If you are only conscious of your problems and keep talking about it and about how great they are, you make a bigger giant out of the giant already in front of you and therefore it becomes more difficult to defeat. As a matter of fact it is impossible to defeat it if you only think and talk about the problem and never the solution.

Politics went home that day and thought about what the street preacher said. He had tried everything else and it hadn’t worked, he might as well try the street preachers instruction.

Politics changed the type of words he used in his daily life and in his songs. Instead of speaking defeat he spoke victory. Instead of analyzing and rapping about the problems in the society in songs he rapped about the solution. He rapped about what could be done to change things instead of blaming the government or somebody else for not doing their job right.

People could see the change in Politics. There was something different about him. He was more positive – more positive minded. Those who attended his shows left feeling uplifted and not like those who has been convinced the whole world is against them and they would never make it. Politics himself felt good about himself. He spoke about God more in his songs and received deep heartfelt feedback from those who attended his shows.

Things were really looking up.

And then, all of a sudden, as though Politics were cursed or something. Politics experienced the worst week of his life. Two close relatives died. Politics was falsely arrested for a crime he knew nothing about. There were threats in his mail box. There was a shoot-out in one of his shows, and a bunch of other terrible things happened that week. But the worst thing that Politics feared the most happened to crown up the end of that week, it was that he got kicked out of his apartment and was forced to leave on the streets cause he didn’t have enough money to pay for an apartment in the city.

At this point things looked like they could only get worse for Politics, he certainly felt that way.

Politics began to feel like what’s the point, he might as well give up. What’s the point of being positive? He’d focused on the solution and situations had still gotten him to were he was right now – homeless.

Politics had just about thrown in the towel when he saw a sign in a large graffiti painting on the side wall of a local church. It read: FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH.

It was then that it hit Politics that it was Satan that made him feel discouraged. It was Satan that wanted him to give up.   

Politics right there and right then made up his mind to be always positive and always focus on the solution instead of the problem no matter the situation he found himself in.

Politics decided to plan and host a show in-spite of the fact that he was homeless. He would never stop no matter want. He would change the world. He would never stop believing in what God can do through him. 

He would never acknowledge the strength & magnitude of the problems facing him, rather he would take his eyes off the problem and focus on the solution.

Politics continued with unshakeable fervor and a year later he was given a record deal by the biggest gospel music record label ever. His music videos where on fire on TV and his songs were popular requests on radio stations around the English speaking/Rap music listening world.

50 years later, by the end of his life his music had been one of the key instruments that helped to set the stage for solving 80% of all the problems in the society that everyone else complained about.

 THE END.