Sometimes the answer is right in front of you

Today my wife and I had to go to church in Heerlen. My dear Isabel is currently a counselor in the Primary stake presidency and is required to attend a variety of local conferences. So we set off in our new car, a little over 200 km away. Fortunately, the car has a built-in GPS, so we didn't think it would be a problem to get there.

But every GPS works in a different way and a new car takes some getting used to. So I heard commands almost on the spot, but Dutch intersections can sometimes be so wonderfully complicated that “turn left now” could use some more clarification.

So at some point I frantically search for where I can now see a detail of the intersection, so that I know which left is the right left. I have a fantastic car, but it is clearly a product of our age, especially the information age. Three screens provide information simultaneously, so you are sometimes more like a pilot on board a jet than a driver in a car.

So you have to imagine: you have an urgent question “where should I go?” and suddenly so much information comes at you that you almost drown in it and, even though it is there, you cannot find the answer. Do you recognize that feeling? I think more people have that these days. If you have questions, it will sometimes be more of a task to find the answer from all the information you receive as feedback than to find anything at all. How should you proceed?

Drowning in information

Every now and then someone asks me a question and I think “come on, you'll find that out yourself if you make some effort and use Google” and I often use Let me Google that for you to actually mock the questioner a bit. Just as well, I've already decided to get one myself lmgtfy to get an answer to my question.

However, I am beginning to realize that people sometimes ask the question not because they find nothing, but because they find too much and are no longer able to filter the amount of information. There seem to be so many answers, even many that seem to be mirror images of each other and contradict each other, that you are actually at a standstill without an answer.

You may even be better off without an answer at this point, because a wrong answer can cause more damage. It is not without reason that doctors now hang posters with warnings about “Doctor Google”. The bad guys among us might say that doctors put this up to protect their own income or because they can't stand being questioned, but I can imagine seeing patients who are so fixated on what they think they have that they are more likely to quote the list of symptoms from the internet than what they really feel. Quite dangerous, I think.

I think Google is fantastic. I use it an incredible amount and I manage to unlock a lot of information that others don't seem to find immediately. Some of my friends already call me “Mister Google” and I'm actually happy that they find me reliable enough to pass on their question to.

At the same time, I realize that everything I say now contains quite an important message. We are drowning in so much information that it becomes difficult to separate valuable information from less important information or even from fake news, a phenomenon fueled by social media, which were invented to easily share information with each other.

What I learned this morning in the car is to just look straight in front of your nose. In my case it helped because the detail I was looking for was projected onto my window in my heads-up display. However, it is no different in real life. The answers are sometimes there for the taking, if only we are willing to see them.

Lesson two: trust others. If I had made a mistake this morning, what would be wrong with using the old method again and rolling down the window and asking someone for help? Shouldn't we put information technology aside more often so that we receive less information and focus on only the information we can get from friends, family or loved ones? Not bundled in 140 or 160 characters in vulgar language? A nice old-fashioned conversation, for example; nothing wrong with that.

We should especially do this with questions that are somewhere, perhaps deeply buried, in all of us. What those questions are may be different for each of us, but I am convinced that we all have such questions within us. Questions that require a little more time and study and that can safely wait for a mature answer.

Give meaning as an answer

Some will call that reflection. Reflection in the sense of “making sense of”. “Giving meaning”: meaning is stated as singular. No excess of answers and no slipping between two stools. Just a simple sentence in response to complex questions. That is sometimes a much more difficult assignment than “write an 80-page essay about …”.

I had a wonderful conversation with my stake president Joep Boom this morning. As a good shepherd, he was concerned about me because a lot had happened to me lately, but when I told him that I saw things positively, he looked up for a moment. I then explained to him that I regularly speak to schools and that I am asked "what do you think has made you so successful as a businessman?" Then I always answer: “Make many mistakes on the condition that you learn at least one lesson from each mistake.”

I told my stake president that I think this is also a simple answer to the question “how does Mormonism learn to continue to grow?” One sentence: learn from your mistakes, get up and move on. Many know the parable of the woman taken in adultery and Jesus' wise words "let him who is without sin cast the first stone." The lesson most learn from this (and it is an important lesson) is that we should not simply judge. But the second lesson that is a little more hidden is what Jesus says to the woman, “go and sin no more.” This also includes “I hope you have learned something from this and that you will take this wise lesson with you”.

So it wouldn't be a bad thing for us to think a little more about the answers that are in front of us, in our hearts, with our friends, but also with our Heavenly Father. I just gave the example to show how even to very contemporary questions, answers can be found in the scriptures. The answers, though hard to find, are often right in front of us if we look and take the time to look.

My wish this Sunday is that you all find the time to look straight ahead for a little longer for the answer you are looking for and that in this way you may find that meaning, that gives meaning to your search and an answer to your question.