I have been Challenged!

For some of us, if the subject heading of this post was told to you, it would affect you in one of two ways. It would either leave a bad taste in your mouth and would make you look around to see if you can escape. Or it would do just the opposite; making you excited with great expectations and that you would look forward to the outcome of getting the challenge accomplished!

But did you ever stop to think that every day of our lives we encounter one challenge or another? For some of us, our challenges are our families. For example; let’s take those of us that have kids. We are teaching them, feeding them, clothing them, stopping them from fighting with each other (if we have more than one) and constantly giving them our undivided attention, and if they are sick, we are tending to them even more so. And all of this is done within one day! Then we turn around in eight hours (if we are lucky to get much of a break) and do this routine all over again!  Add a spouse on top of that and man you wonder where has the time gone? And if your kids are grown, there is a whole set of challenges that I won’t even get into. Then there are people that aren’t marry and don’t have the same challenges I just describe. Theirs are going to work, or school. They have to deal with bosses, teachers, family, and friends. They deal with different personalities through out the day.  Yes they do have their own challenges to face from day to day.

We as people have been challenged even back in the O.T. biblical days. Let’s look at some examples. The first one that comes to mind is Eve.  In Genesis 3.1 We are told one of the first challenges that Eve faced.

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the creatures the LORD God had made. "Really?" he asked the woman. "Did God really say you must not eat any of the fruit in the garden?"

Not only was Satan challenging Eve, but God’s authority as well! Then there is Moses. How many times did he have to ask Pharaoh to let God’s people? And in the book of Esther Mordecai gave Esther this challenge:

EST 4:11-14"The whole world knows that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die unless the king holds out his gold scepter. And the king has not called for me to come to him in more than a month.

"So Hathach gave Esther's message to Mordecai.  Mordecai sent back this reply to Esther: "Don't think for a moment that you will escape there in the palace when all other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. What's more, who can say but that you have been elevated to the palace for just such a time as this?"

If we look at Mat 19:21-22 the rich man is challenge by Jesus. But when the young man heard what he must do, he went sadly away because he had many possessions.

Another challenge I like you to take a look at is in Mat 4:18-20 where Christ gave a challenge to Peter and Andrew.

My point in all of this, is to ask you what challenges are in your life that you are not trusting God in? Are the challenges you are facing appearing to you as mountains? Or have you given them to God, so that they may appear as molehills? Maybe you just feel like you can’t take on another challenge in your life! Have you maybe thought that God is trying to tell you what Mat 11:28-30.says?

I have a magnet on my fridge that was given to me years ago. I received it when my marriage of 19 years was ending, and I was feeling lost and helpless. The magnet has a picture of a small child, and the child is facing the ocean with the waves lapping at its feet, and the child’s arms are open wide. And the saying on the magnet is this “Welcome Life’s Endless Possibilities”. For my friend that given me the magnet felt that God wanted to “challenge me”. Yet I felt I wasn’t ready for that task. But I decided to accept the challenge, and it was shortly after that, that I met my soul mate. And we have been married for ten years.

God places challenges in our lives so that we may grow and learn. If we stop growing, and stop learning, then we stop God in all of His glory! And while there are challenges I would love to run from, I won’t. I don’t want to be the one that suppresses God in His glory!!

Psa 34:8 Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who trust in Him!