What If You’re Solving The Wrong Problem?

In Order to Solve a Problem...

You have to correctly identify the problem. Because if you get the problem wrong, you’ll get the solution wrong too.

And when that happens, you end up applying the wrong solution to the wrong problem—which only leads to more problems. On top of problems.

“It’s like using pain meds for a chronic condition caused by bad habits. It helps for a few hours. Until it doesn’t.” (Jameson Allen)

We never wind up satisfied, at ease, or filled with assurance. Just a low-grade pressure humming beneath everything—especially when it’s quiet. So we either sink deep roots into a madness we begrudgingly insist is happiness, or—like fad diet addicts—we bounce from one con to another. 

This is the human problem:
We’ve been handed a delusional vision of a world where we are problem-solvers—if we just get the right knowledge, gain enough control, and chase what we think we need to become.

In short: we see ourselves and the world as it is not.
And this isn’t because we’re unintelligent or hopeless delinquents. It's because we’ve been handed plausible-sounding lies by others trapped in the same delusion—never realizing they were empty until it was too late.

How did this happen? Why does it keep happening?

Because ever since the Garden, humans have believed they are what they are not. Which means who we really are—what we actually are—has been buried and forgotten.

But the truth, according to the Maker and Sustainer of us all, is this:
Who we really are is original and unchangeable.
We are the ones who already belong—now and ever after.

This isn’t a fairy tale.
It’s the one truth that makes all other truths true.
And when we call it a lie, we spend our time solving invented problems that turn life into a miserable pursuit of the unattainable.

In short: we live in an illusion.
And that illusion eclipses the reality that we didn’t need anything but what we already had. 

These lies and empty promises have captured us in an imaginary prison. Shame has kept us caged here for centuries. And we exhaust ourselves (and each other) with religious efforts, trying to dig our way out of the hole we’re in.

We build entire ideologies, cultures, empires, industries, and even churches with the hay and straw of our misperception—and all the competition and desperation that come with it.

Enter the Gospel

What the Bible calls “Good News” isn’t just another religious proposition with its fair share of pros and cons. In fact, it’s not a proposition. It’s an announcement.

The Gospel is something so unique—it feels disreputable.
God is not a manager, a moral coach, or a cosmic landlord.
God is a Father. A good one.

This kind of news?
It’s roll-on-the-floor hilarious.
It’s stop-you-in-your-tracks stunning.
It’s so free, it sounds immoral.

In the words of my friend Jameson, “this is the kind of grace that sounds like heresy if you’re addicted to performance.” Which is why we’re prone to write it off as a cop-out for grace abusers.

But honestly, what else could it be?

Anything else is just another rerun of humanity’s failed attempts to get a deity to accept us—to earn what was never up for negotiation.

But God isn’t playing that game.
He alone is the covenant-maker—and—the covenant-keeper.
And Jesus is the unveiling of His unrelenting faithfulness to the world He loves.

We are free, not because Jesus made the game winnable, but because He exposed the game as a lie.

Jesus didn’t come to improve our strategy—He came to end the race.

You get to enjoy trusting a God this good because Jesus is unmasking you.
He’s pulling the wool from your eyes so you can see the Father the way He does.
So you can trust the Father the way He does.
So we can finally love each other without needing to justify ourselves.

This changes everything.

Because if Jesus Is the solution, then that tells us something about the real problem.

The problem isn’t that we’re not enough.
The problem isn’t that we need more knowledge or better performance to become enough.

The problem is our failed vision of who God is and how we relate to Him (John 1:18).
And the solution—the remedy—is Jesus’ death and resurrection (Rom 5:10; Gal 2:20).

No one saw a Savior who would willingly die at the hands of the very religion we wanted more than God—not to finally love us, but to show us He always has (Rom 5:8). 

And no one expected the Messiah’s resurrection—let alone that He’d return with the scandalous announcement that His resurrection wasn’t just His (Rom 6:5; Col 3:1-4).

It was ours. The world’s. All along. 

As Dr. Baxter Kruger put it:

“The lie of separation is the great darkness.”

When we think brokenness and distance are the problems we must overcome, we end up inventing the very problem Jesus already solved.

In His body, God and man are more united than we’ve ever dared to imagine (John 14:20).

Not Toil. Trust.

This means you don’t need toil.
You don’t need a new spiritual strategy.
You don’t need a better version of what has been labeled “church.”

You need to see Jesus for who He is so you can trust who He is for you—and everyone else.

And that trust isn’t a tool—it’s a risk.
A passive risk, even. A precarious place to live.

Because it’s the death of the project-of-self.
It’s the surrender to a life you can’t control.

But it’s also the only thing that makes sense… if resurrection is true.
It’s the kind of peace that surpasses all understanding.
The kind of joy that cannot be taken away.

You need a way to experience the peace that was always yours. And that kind of peace starts with a simple FREE GUIDE: Faith Beyond The Formal Church (And Why That Was Always The Pan).

This short, honest read will help you see another way—beyond the grind of religious pressure, into the rest Jesus actually gave.