Challenge vs God’s will
- Challenge
- “to take on difficult tasks and problems”
- God’s will
- “to seek and obey the will of God”
A hard offer lands in front of you. It might be a role you are not sure you can handle, a move to a place where you know no one, or a goal that would take all you have. Part of you lights up because it is hard. Another part asks a different question. Is this what God wants of me, or only what I want to prove?
Challenge and God’s will can point the same way. Faith often asks for hard things, and a hard task can feel like a calling. They collide when the pull of difficulty and the sense of being led start to part. Challenge looks for the steep path, because climbing is how you grow. God’s will looks for the right path, and the right path is sometimes plain, slow or quiet. On the map they sit on opposite sides, one in an area about new experience and the other in an area about keeping the customs of a faith.
Challenge guards your nerve. It keeps you from settling, and it lets you learn what you can do by doing it. God’s will guards a purpose outside yourself. It places your choices under something larger than your drive, and it watches for the pride that can hide inside ambition. It also ties you to a faith that others share and have kept before you.
The hard part is that each can look like the other. A thirst for a test can dress itself up as a calling. A wish to stay comfortable can dress itself up as waiting on God. Telling them apart takes honest attention, and often time, prayer or the counsel of people you trust. That kind of patience is its own discipline, and it is not one that Challenge tends to enjoy.
So when a hard thing calls to you, try this question. If the task turned out to be easy, would you still believe you were meant to do it?
What choosing one over the other tends to mean
Challenge over God’s will
If you put Challenge above God’s will, you tend to say yes to the hard thing and trust that meaning will come as you go. You act before every question is settled, and you take growth as a sign you are on track. The cost is that you may outrun your own discernment. You might take on a fight that was never yours, or let faith become a backdrop to your plans instead of a guide for them.
God’s will over Challenge
If you put God’s will above Challenge, you tend to ask where you are being led before you ask what would test you. You may wait, pray or seek counsel first, and you may turn down a bold goal that does not seem to be yours. The cost is that some chances pass while you wait. You may also stay in a smaller role than you could fill, and wonder at times whether caution was wearing the clothes of obedience.
Where they collide
A tough role you did not seek
Your manager offers you a demanding new role, leading a team through a hard turnaround. You want to see if you can pull it off. You also sense that your current work is where you are meant to serve, and the new role would leave little room for your faith life. You have a week to answer.
Training through the day of rest
You sign up for a hard endurance race. The plan puts long runs on the one day your faith sets aside for rest and worship. Moving the runs makes the training harder to finish. Keeping them means stepping away from a practice you have kept for years.
Asked to lead something new
Your faith community needs someone to start a program for local families. It would stretch you in ways you have not been stretched before. But you are not sure whether you want it because it feels called for, or because it is a big, bold task you would enjoy conquering.
An example even-over principle
God’s will even over Challenge. When a hard new goal tempts me and I have not yet prayed it through, I will wait a week and ask someone I trust before I say yes. I accept that some chances will pass while I wait.
One example of the format, not advice. In Even Over you write your own, for the pairs your choices show.