Challenge, Response

To paraphrase the English historian Arnold Toynbee, all of history can be summed up in two words: Challenge, Response.

While he was mainly talking about the rise and fall of civilizations throughout world history, I believe this same formula applies to our individual lives as well. For we all face a ton of daily challenges, many that seem to be more than we can handle. From the external pressures of family life and parenting, or singleness, work and finances, to our internal emotional and spiritual battles — these are what our lives consist of. Yet, so often our first instinct is to seek to escape the challenges and crises that come our way. But I’d like us to consider that, perhaps, the problem is that we think the problem is the problem.

Or, another way to put it would be the way the preacher at my mother-in-law’s church that we visited in Montgomery, Alabama, last Sunday phrased it. He said, “You can’t see Christ without the crisis.” There were a few other one liners that got thrown out, as well — but that one in particular caught my attention.

Jesus is the solution to a problem — in fact, to all of our problems. If we had no crisis, no problems — nothing that was greater than our ability to figure it out on our own — then what need would we have of a Savior? Yet, we so often try and try to do everything we can to eliminate or get around our problems in our own strength and understanding, rather than deepening our dependence on God as we trust him to bring us through our problems.

2 Peter 1:3 tells us this:

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.”

Peter says both “life” and “godliness.” It’s not his power just to bring us to spiritual life from death in some past-tense forgiveness of sins or simply to give us the hope of eternal life in the future. It’s also His divine power for our godliness, our growth in holiness in the here and now.

We’re heading into Thanksgiving this week, and Advent and Christmas next month, and I know we long to slow down and cherish these special moments with our loved ones and with God. And yet I also know there will be many temptations to give in to the stress and anxiety and busyness of the season.

In light of all this, my exhortation to us is that we would prepare our hearts for the challenges to come, so that we are ready to respond to them with hearts that trust in God’s power to meet our every need.

This leads us to our need to confess our sins…