Robert H. Schuller, the televangelist of Crystal Cathedral fame said, "Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines."  What a great statement. If only more of us would take it to heart.

Wonderful things are possible if they take a problem and turn it into a challenge.  A challenge means to keep on going until you find a solution. Too often we encounter a problem and begin to worry about it.  The problem festers and becomes so big we are overwhelmed.  At that point we come to a dead stop. 

Tear a problem apart and look at all of the components, you are at least moving.  Evaluate the parts and you see individual pieces as opportunities.  All of those opportunities are the guidelines to a solution. 

How often have you encountered a problem and just threw up your hands and actually quit trying to solve it.  Maybe you were out of work and couldn't find a job right away.  For a while you even quit looking.  That is a problem that became a stop sign. 

Any problem where you  stopped trying to solve it was a stop sign.  As soon as you looked for more ways to solve the problem, it became a guideline.  If you followed the guideline to its natural conclusion, you solved the problem and life became better.