Challenges Come

James 1:2-3
When troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.

How often do we get held up in a long line of traffic anxious to continue on our way. Then only a short distance away we find a terrible crash and realize that had we been a minuter earlier it could have been us. Years ago when I would just miss an accident caused by another driver cutting me off or running a light, I would yell out at the person who put me in danger giving them a piece of my mind. Now I take that opportunity to thank God for the miss.

We all run into trouble or things that come in the way of our perfect plan. Often these are circumstances of life caused by others. Sometimes they are the result of poor choices of our own. But out of every one we have a chance to grow.

The test is in what we do as a result of the misfortune. How do we react? It is easy to sit back and analyze a situation someone else is in and use our logic and our experiences in life to determine the best way to handle things; the right way to react. That is reacting out of our intellect. But what about reacting out of our heart?

God sees it all. He is constantly looking at how much we have grown. The test is in how much we have grown to be more like Christ in how we react. Did we counter with Love or with something else bent on revenge?

Either way, we grow. One way is towards a more Christ centered character and the other takes us the other way. When the later happens, we need to stop, ask God for forgiveness, and pray He helps us react differently the next time a challenge comes our way.