Side Quests: Challenges

Challenges always adds an engaging dynamic to a game.  I am not talking about "Boss fights" that you have to win in order to progress onward.  No, a challenge is something that typically tests to see your level of experience, skill, or effectiveness in the game. Often when you get to these challenges in a game, a player can return to redo them if they were not as successful as they wanted to be to get better rewards or better stats among other players (if in an open world online).  Again, I refer to my experience with Batman: Arkham Knight where often challenges were to see how high of a score you could get in fighting against a large crowd effectively, all the while trying to beat some of my friends scores who had done the same challenge. This was a major distraction since once you found out other people's scores compared to your own, it was easy to get focused on beating other's scores and loose track of where you should be in the story.

The Bible is not afraid to talk about challenges in our life or that we will face them from time-to-time simply because of our connection with Jesus (read the later half of John 15). Not only are we supposed to accept that we will have challenges, but to take the opportunity to grow in them.  Romans 5:3-5 lays out the process for this. "We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.  And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.  And this hope will not lead to disappointment.  For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love."  It is in going through these challenges we develop ourselves not just to survive the problem, but to impact how we move on past it.  That is looking at our challenges with a bigger goal in mind, a reminder of the hope (future perspective/big story language) that we are holding on to.

How do you see challenges in your life? Are they roadblocks that you just simply push and move on through, or are they a way of developing yourself for the bigger goal/story ahead?