Ingenuity

     “Oh, the ingenuity of the American mind.” My Mother made that exclamation whenever she observed some remarkable way to solve a problem or a clever invention. She was always impressed and appreciated new approaches to common problems and whatever made any task easier or more efficient. Raised on a farm, she grew up witnessing the use of many clever, or make-do ideas for how to accomplish a task.

I thought of her when I saw this old glass milk bottle in a museum. When I was a child, we had glass milk bottles delivered to our house, but they had narrow necks. They were not like this milk bottle with its built-in bulge to hold the cream which rises to the top of the milk all on its own. With the addition of the small ladle sporting a handle at the proper angle, separating the cream from the milk was much easier and efficient. Ingenious for sure. Wonder who first had this idea as well as the skill to make a bottle with this specific bulge. I don’t know. However, I do know the Author of ideas, the Creator who endows us with His solutions, His approaches, His inspiration. He can point the way and lead us to discover solutions. We can simply ask Him and then keep our eyes and ears open to discern a solution when it occurs in our mind or before our spiritual eyes. It need not be a mighty project, nor a patent worthy invention, but it will be an answer to a puzzle, or a need, or a process, and it will arrive in His timing and His way. God help us keep our minds open to the thoughts you want us to think, to the resolutions you want us to employ. Help us follow through on the nudges you send to our minds of ways that bring blessing to us and others.