Our Response to Challenges

The Patriarchs of the Old Testament, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob become excellent examples of men who walked by faith, but were confronted with great challenges beyond their own control and strength.   We see again and again how God allowed difficulty and trial into their lives. 

We see in the midst of their trials two responses.  Sometimes there response was one of great faith.  We saw that in the life of Abraham.  In Genesis 12:1-3 we see how after God chose him to become the father of Israel, who would bless this world with God’s word and Jesus the messiah, he left his home in Mesopotamia by faith and was willing follow God by going to Canaan to settle into land of God’s choosing.    

But we also see in the life of the Patriarchs their struggle to accept God’s direction and will.  We saw this with Abraham and Sarah’s, when they fled to Egypt in the midst of a famine or tried to forge a family with Hagar as a surrogate mom. (Genesis 12, 16)   We see this in Isaac’s life when he struggled to see clearly that God was choosing Jacob not Esau to fulfill God’s vision to become a great nation.  (Genesis 25:28) 

Every believer faces these same two challenges in life.  The first challenge often lies beyond our control.  The second challenge is very much in our control.  The first has to do with difficult circumstances that only God can change in His time and His way.  Perhaps this may be a health problem, a struggling marriage, unemployment or the 101 other challenges that lie beyond our control.  All of us face these kind of circumstances. 

The second challenge very much lies in our control and that is our response to difficulty.  Here our willingness to accept God’s direction and word can guide the attitudes of our heart along the way.  While salvation in Christ is a gift from God, once we receive that salvation, our growth very much depends on our willingness to follow.  It is when we follow God in the midst of difficulty that our lives can be characterized by faith, joy, peace, hope, love, self-control, and patience. 

Our response to trial and difficulty is actually the barometer or the gauge that determines the spiritual maturity of our hearts.  If we are more characterized by anxiety and fear, rather than faith and hope, this reveals that we are struggling to accept God’s direction in our lives.  If our lives are filled more with bitterness and anger, these responses reveal that we are struggling to put God at the center of our affections.     

So let us follow the Lord in every area of life and remember the words of our Savior Jesus, “He who would come after me, must deny himself, pick up his cross and then come follow me.  Whoever loves this life will lose it, but whoever hates this life will keep it.  For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?”  (Luke 9:23-24)