Facing Your Challenges
We will always face challenges in our lives. A challenge? The first definition says, "a call or summons to engage" in something to prove your skills, strength and endurance. When you think about this definition, when opposition comes your way, it is a summon that you will have to engage in it in order to get out of it. You may not like challenges, oppositions, trials, or tests. But the only way we can grow (stepping stones) and take another step closer to God is to face our test, stay in the test, (don't try to run from it), and learn from the experience.
Challenges comes to push us! Sometimes we get so relaxed and laid back that we are too comfortable because we have lost our focus and have become side tracked by the cares of this world. This is when opposition or a challenge is sure to come knocking at your door. God does not want us to get comfortable and be lukewarm. He wants us to grow in him.
If you are never challenged, you will never grow, you will never know what you are capable of doing, and you will never know who he is or can be in your life. A lot of times, when we go through a challenge, that thing that we are facing may look bigger than we are and we feel like we can't make it. One thing I have learned about challenges and oppositions, it will show you who you are and what is inside of you. You want to know who you are and if you really want to serve the Lord, go through a challenge and watch the decisions you make and see whether they be of God or of the World.
Yes, there will be times when we mess everything up because we want to do it our way. Yes, we make mistakes and we may fail the test terribly. But that's what so good about God's Grace and Mercy. He always gives us another chance to pass the test.
Enduring the test requires you to have a made up mind to stay with God no matter what you have to face and endure. You see, when we look at stepping stones, they are spread apart and sometimes you have to stretch to step to the next stone. Well, that is what we have to do with our faith as we go through our little storms and test. We have to stretch out on Faith, Keep Believing God no matter how it looks, even when you don't hear a word from God; just keep trusting him and believing that he will make the way. The race is not given to the swift, but to him that endureth to the end. Just keep swimming, just keep holding on and your blessing is around the corner.
We can only know him when we walk with him through the storm, test, trials, and challenges. This is how we get to know him through his word. It's takes his Word to help you walk through these storms. When you come out of the storm, you know him in a different perspective each time you are called or summoned to engage into a challenge.
There is purpose in every challenge you face. Seek God, wait on him for the answer. When he brings you out, make sure you give him the Praise!
