I admit it. I just had an awkward moment most never tell anyone else about.

I’ve had a bad earache the last couple of days, so I thought it was just throwing me off. I was setting up my laptop to write this article and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t connect the plug.

Then my wife enters the room informing me I’m trying to connect her laptop cord to my laptop. That’s problematic.

And no matter how bad I feel physically, the actual problem at hand is I’m caught in an exercise of futility that nothing’s going to change until I knowingly initiate changing to the correct cord for my laptop. Not to mention the mixed feelings of embarrassment and gratitude for my wife rescuing me, as opposed to reveling and relishing watching her husband in a battle of the wills, a senseless struggle of man versus machine. That battle was already lost before it began.

Thank you, Liz, and yes, it’s true computers and I don’t get along.

So this computer cord conundrum provoked thoughts about a story I came across in “Fierce Conversations” by Susan Scott.

Growing up, it was her younger brother’s Saturday job to, by all means necessary, get rid of the family’s mole problem. He took his job seriously and used every conceivable means necessary to get rid of moles.

He confessed when he moved from home the only mole he ever exterminated died of old age. Years later, Susan received a call from her brother declaring his disbelief, “Suze, you won’t believe it. I was at the hardware store standing in line behind a guy with a big bag of something that had a skull and crossbones on it. I asked him what it was for and he said, ‘The mole problem.’ So I asked him, ‘How do you get that stuff down in the burrows?’

And he said, ‘Oh, it’s not for the moles. You sprinkle it on the grass and it kills the grubs the moles eat.’”

Susan chuckled, her brother continued, “If I had gone after the grubs, I could have spent Saturdays riding my bicycle.”

Like Susan’s brother, many have perfected the art of mole whacking and behind every mole, there waits dozens of other moles. We become such good mole whackers we lose touch with the real problem or, as we refer to it in cognitive behavior therapy circles, the core issue. In this case, the grub worms.

What if the problem isn’t really the problem at all and the solution is so simple that if we’re not careful, we miss it altogether?

Many complex, layered problems, when the dots all are connected and the real presenting problem is identified, actually have simple solutions such as using the correct cord for your laptop.

It reminds me of the time Jesus was teaching in the temple and the teachers of the law brought a woman caught in a sinful act to him.

The teachers of the law said, “This woman was caught having sexual relations with a man who is not her husband. The law of Moses says we stone to death every woman who does this. What do you say we should do?”

Jesus, refusing to be trapped by their trick, stoops down to write in the dirt. The teachers of the law press for an answer. He raises up and says to them, “Anyone here who has never sinned can throw the first stone at her.”

Then he bends down and starts writing on the ground again. One by one, her accusers left. Jesus asked her where they are and had no one judged her. She responds by saying, “No one.” Then Jesus tells her he doesn’t judge her either and to go and leave her life of sin.

What I would give to have been there to see what Jesus was writing. We never will know for sure, but we do know the second time he started writing on the ground, all the teachers of the law left.

What if the first time Jesus wrote in the dirt, he was writing the names of each of the woman’s accusers? And what if the second time he was writing their sin next to their names? What if he was calling them out for being mole whackers instead of grub killers?

Now that’s problematic because most of the time, problems that seem to plague people imprisoning them to a lifetime of mole whacking are really not the problem at all. But day after day, religious people keep on mole whacking, never coming to the place they can see the grub worm as the real issue causing their mole problems.

I am thankful Liz came along and rescued me from whacking my laptop problem, but I’m more grateful God gives us the understanding to realize how to help one another deal with the core grub worm problem causing all the faulty core belief mole problems in our lives. What if the problem is really not the problem?

A better question may be are you a mole whacker or one who goes after the grubs?

Dr. T.J. Kimble of Radcliff is a clinical pastoral counselor. He can be reached attj@yourbestlifenowcounseling.com.