Answers...we've got 'em!

I watched as he squirmed in his seat. The young man was trying to think of the right answer. He had given the correct answer for the last five. Could he do it again?
He spoke and the crowd cheered. Right again.
How did he possibly know THAT, I wondered.

The faraway look in his eye and his clenched jaw was subtle, and it took him a minute to come back to the moment. He had remembered. Now he was smiling.

Somewhere in his past he had been given the answer. It probably seemed unimportant and random at the time. Yet, filed away and deep in his memory was the answer.
Pieces of his life, scattered for so many years, came together in that moment to make sense. To teach the lesson. Present the opportunity to understand. To provide the answer.

When our life feels like a puzzle full of random and inconsistent pieces it is just a matter of time before a truth or purpose is revealed. And if we put forth the effort, we can discover the answer.
Nothing that happens in our lives is insignificant. Everything, each detail, fulfills a purpose... provides an answer for a moment down the road.
We already have our answers.
They often lie deep inside our hearts. Our memories. Waiting to be recalled at the right moment. To give us strength. To complete a task. To remind us of who we are. To answer a game show question correctly.

So when you ask, How am I going to handle this? How am I expected to endure this situation that seems so foreign to me? How will I survive my circumstances?
Remember, you already have the answer. It lies within you. At some point in your past you have received the answer, or the gift or the talent necessary to withstand this moment.

Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who all along had the power to return home by tapping her heels together.
So I guess the question then becomes, how do we dig into our memories/talents to discover what the answer is in the moment?
Some of us recall our childhood with precise detail. Others pull memories out of a distant fog. We all have forgottten moments and painful times we choose to ignore.
Looking at old photos, visiting places, talking with people from the past, counseling and prayer, are but a few ways people journey back to uncover answers to life's questions.

Maybe that's why it is said, God will not give you more than you can handle. The answer to the question that you have infront of you already exists inside you. Find your answer!