Challenge Ahead

A few years ago,  I was driving up to a Retreat Center for a Women’s Conference. As we were driving the winding roads to the hill country of Northern California, I saw the sign that said “Challenge: One Mile Ahead.” We drove through the small town called Challenge and I thought, “How nice would that be in life? To have a sign to warn you every time you were about to face an upcoming challenge?”

As Jesus followers, we do have a warning from Jesus Himself. The night Jesus was betrayed and after the last supper, Jesus was laying out the road His disciples were going to have to walk and putting a big sign on it declaring “challenges ahead.” As Jesus was preparing to face the cross, He was preparing His disciples for the reality of the trials they would soon face because of Him. He speaks of the unfair treatment, slander, lies and outright opposition that they were going to have to deal with. Then He said, “I have told you these things, so that you might have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (NIV)

Being a Jesus follower doesn’t shield you from trouble, sometimes it causes it. Being a Jesus follower doesn’t save you from hardship but it does give you a limitless reservoir of divine peace to pull from in the midst of it. Paul wrote this to the church in Corinth, “through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” 2 Corinthians 6:8-10 (NIV)

Yes, in the world you have faced troubles but as a Jesus follower, you are no longer a part of this world but draw your life from the world beyond it.

Challenge Ahead. Keep Going.