Life is about Challenge

Real life has plenty of challenges…if we choose to accept them. As the key Scripture for this chapter says, we will have troubling situations in life (John 16:33). We each face daily challenges only the LORD and we can understand. It may be the challenge of going to work or school each day. Or it may be how physical health limits our activities. Or we notice slippage in skills that signal aging. Whatever the source, we all have challenges. And there are challenges we fear, because we cannot know what the outcome will be.
Notice I am using the word challenge and not problem. A challenge is neither good nor bad, just a part of life. A challenge is something a person can overcome. Some even create challenging situations or circumstances so they can have mastery over them.
Problems are often seen as hurtful and harmful. Each one seems to take on a life of its own. A problem can control and consume us, rather than we controlling and consuming it.
A key to difficult times is whether we choose to face them or ignore them. Avoiding life challenges is saying there is no offense, no scandal or troublesome time to be addressed. Facing challenges head on is to understand the nature of life. While a passive approach might work sometimes, it is in actively facing challenges we lessen and overcome our fears and feelings of helplessness.

Taken out of “From Fear to faith” (second edition), by Bob Mullen, Ed.D.
(Anticipated publication date January 2012, Ketch Publishing, Bloomington, IN)

Bob sees clients in Ft.Worth at the West Freeway Church of Christ.