LOOKING FOR ANSWERS IN THE WRONG PLACES!

FIVE MINUTES WITH TOM MOOTY

As published in the Newport (TN) Plain Talk
August 25, 2011
Column Number: FM 1134


Ok, I admit it! I confess! You got me!

I enjoy “wasting time” on a good logic problem or a “sudoku” puzzle.

Oh yeah, I could go into about thirty minutes worth of aimless, political double-speaking, mind-numbing dissertation on how they hone my already-razor-sharp mind to a maximum peak of razor-sharpness. I could do that; but someone out there in “Five Minuteville” will be equally as razor-sharp and recognize my disquisitation as just so much aimess, political double-speaking, mind-numbing discoursing.

So, I will not insult your intelligence with that improvident loquacity.

Actually I just enjoy sitting down and working out a problem!

I was overjoyed when I saw that my friends at “Five Minute Headquarters” were going to have a special section in the weekend edition that included various forms of these problems and puzzles.

Since I didn’t have any time to “waste” – er “spend” - that first week; I just laid it aside to pick up later. Imagine my surprise when I saw in a later edition that my friends at HQ had published the first book with all the wrong answers (not that I ever have to look up a answer).

I can hear them now: “Has anybody seen them answers for that there puzzelling book? I gotta have ‘em in five minutes” (everybody down there works in five minute intervals – except for coffee breaks, snack breaks, lunch breaks, and nap breaks – but that’s column fodder for another time). “No? Well that’s ok, I’ll jest grab some answers from a coupla weeks ago”.

As that goofy green gecko says, “That’s a total dramatization of course, but you get my point”.

We live in a day of instant grab a problem, rassle with it a while, and solve it or check the answer in the back of the book – all within - you guessed it - five minutes; and then move on.

We live in a day when television programs show the problem (the murder, the mayhem, and maliciousness) in – you guessed it – five minute segments, sandwiched within – you guessed it – five minute segments of commercials until you get to the other end of yet another wasted period of time with the problem all nicely solved and tied up neatly in a neat little bundle of answers from the back of the book.

“What do you mean, the answers were wrong? People can’t make it without the answers; without being declared a winner; and moving on”.

But, frankly, it just doesn’t happen that way. Everybody wanted that “soap opera” trial in Orlando to “get on with it”. “She’s guilty, everybody knows that; get to the last part so we can move on to another problem”.

Life is like that, you know. Life will jump right up and slap you across the chops with no answer page anywhere in sight.

And so, people start looking for answers; but they spend their time looking in all the wrong places.

Are you looking for answers to the BIG problem - the one that asks you what will happen to you one second after you die (or Jesus comes back)? Are you looking for answers to that BIGGIE?

I know it! I know the answer! I had it shown to me forty-six years ago!

And it is not in the wrong place! It can be found in many languages; in motel rooms, hospital rooms, and jail cells; in paper-back, leather-back, or hard-back; back rooms, front rooms, middle rooms; back pockets, coat pockets, briefcases and purses; pews and display tables; book cases and coffee tables; and car seats of any member of the Gideon Organization. You know what I’m talking about – The Book of Answers – The Bible!

That’s the Answer you need to the BIGGEST problem you will ever face!

Don’t know the Answer? I do; and I will share!


Tom Mooty serves as Senior Pastor of Newport’s West End Baptist Church; and can be reached with your comments at tommooty05@comcast.net. You are also invited to check out the church website at www.webaptistchurch.org.

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