Don’t pitch Jesus as the answer to every problem!
By: Adedolapo Olisa
Tags: Religion, Jesus, Christianity, Hurt, Problem Solving

Don’t pitch Jesus as the answer to every problem!

I am a business man. It feels good to say that and own it. I actually love business. I love business because it teaches me so much about people. Business at best is an attempt at mastering people.

For instance, in my business, www.charisol.io, we focus on UX. User Research. We say, don’t build anything unless you unearth the needs and pain points of your customers or future users (hence the user in UX). It’s true, the foundation of a business must be the pains, frictions, difficulties, hardships, problems people have that they need solved.

First, there has to be a problem.

Second, the problem has to be significant enough for them to want a solution, a different solution from their current one. Which ignoring it is a solution.

Third, the new solution must cost less than their current solution. Keep in mind that cost is not just money. You can sell a $50 solution for $5000 and it’s cheaper overall. Why? A $5000 bag holds items (problem 1) but also brings attention (problem 2). A $50 bag holds items. That is it.

Fourth, no matter how well you solve a problem, no matter the incredible value your solution offers, people don’t buy, people don’t move, people don’t act, people don’t want, people don’t desire unless they first see a need. A problem. An inconvenience.

Fifth, generic problems don’t attract more people. It attracts no one. So many people set out to make $5000 cheaper to hold items by creating $50 bags. Only to realize no one wants another bag to hold items or the market for holding items is saturated and even for a $1, they cannot find buyers but people are shelling out $5000 still! How can this be ?? That lady buying her fifth purse, isn’t buying Because she needs to hold items; she is buying because she wants more attention, she wants more options to look exotic, she wants to project power and prestige and wealth, she wants to feel independent, she wants to feel like she is taking care of herself, she wants to not have to worry about having enough purses for whatever color of outfit she is dressing in and still not compromising on power, independence etc. In all these scenarios, a $50 purse won’t fit.

Jesus maybe the answer to every problem but until we identify the problems people have, Jesus won’t be an option to them.

The world around me is screaming and hurt. I hear the silence and it’s death in my sleep yet all I think about is how to get them Jesus.

Funny enough I do this on online dating too. I meet a fine woman on bumble and I get excited. My next moves are to tell her HOW, I, Adedolapo Oluwaseun Olisa, feels about her education, her profile, her butt, her hair, her work, her culture, her food choices, her workout choices etc. 5 minutes later, she is no longer responding or I am unmatched. Then I go, it took me 6 months to get this one match and I have been waiting with excitement to spew out allll the things I am feeling! Why the heck did she walk away?! I am talking about her! I know she needs the attention, and she likes it.

Maybe, maybe she likes the attention. Maybe. But she is online to connect with a person and all she met with from me is a man screaming information she already knows at her. Information that maybe even scars her. Like, did I consider the fact that everyday she wakes up wondering why she has the Nicee butt in town yet no real grown man barks up her tree or how that she has all this education and independence but it’s only created a wall that men feel a need to climb up on instead of just knocking through the front door? And how I am quickly adding my name to the men trying to climb Mount Everest to impress her when she just needs an adult to connect with.

People need Jesus, yes but first, people selling Jesus need to know what people need Jesus for.

I didn’t get over porn until I recognized that what it sold me stemmed from a need to feel like I didn’t Need a woman and I could treat women however I wanted because they had nothing I needed — problem.

I only saw this because a preacher said that porn was basically an automatic home wrecker. Because a woman’s greatest security blanket or fall back plan is her knowledge of your dependence on her. So porn essentially encourages and creates a relationship where I don’t need my wife. And it’s sexy to be independent and whole alone, in theory but on real life. In a relationship, independence isn’t a great recipe for successful home. Imagine trying to design a structure where the rooms don’t need the foundation or where the windows don’t need the walls. The beauty of relationship is that we need each other, we own it and we choose to trust, we choose to and who we need.

That preacher created a greater desire in me that became a solution to my baser egotistical need for independence and control.

Now, all of a sudden, I wanna buy whatever Jesus is selling around sex because no one else is teaching “don’t watch porn.”

There are people choosing to divorce their spouses and all I am selling is Jesus says no divorce. They know what he said, but they cannot connect Him to a solution for the physical abuse their spouse has put them through or the emotional trauma from adultery or simply the independence of their spouse from them and the neglect from being alone. Jesus has answers for every and all these deep hurt and pain because He went through them.

Jesus doesn’t need to have gone through divorce because He has gone through the basal pain that Spurs divorce. Jesus doesn’t need to know how a gay relationship feels incredible appealing because He knows the deeper need for love and affection; he’s dealt with wanting something different from what His father needs Him to do and choosing instead to obey blindly, Howbeit painfully. Jesus has answers for why and what it looks like to choose differently from how I feel simply because I trust God that what makes no sense to me today is indeed wise.

A bald man goes to buy a product that fixes baldness. All His adult life, he has tried to fix his baldness many different ways and eventually believed there is no solution. There is no product out there that will work unless he first chooses to try it.

Faith is like that. Jesus is like that. But first, I as a Christian must find what your baldness is because Jesus has a lot of products that really are the same product just packaged differently. Jesus is the same white cream that goes on your scalp for baldness, goes on your skin for dryness, goes in your mouth for your gums, goes in your blood for blood clot, goes in your ear to clean the wax, goes in your stomach for food. He is the same.

But, we need to package the white cream and label it specifically to speak to me- a porn addict, me — a sex enthusiast, me- a narcissist, me- a sexist, me — a racist, me — a _________.

To you, Christian: what does your neighbor need? You won’t find out by just dropping off a white label at their door step and hope they figure out that it will work for their eczema.

To you, atheist, agnostic, LGBTQ, Christian, _______: what is your problem? Stop buying iPhone thinking you only need a phone yet you’re hooked on the status and prestige which is what Apple is selling you unknowingly to you. Be intentional to know what you need and to seek a solution to it. I guarantee you, that bland Jesus may not end up being for you but He got a solution for sure.

The brand of Jesus: speak the truth, the whole truth, the piercing truth, the uncomfortable truth, the naked truth, IN LOVE.

Let me know how I can love you by trusting me with your problem. I promise I won’t preach till I first know your hurt.