Challenges are commonplace in life especially in your calling to be a follower of Christ. You will know if it is a ‘God shaped challenge’ because
‘God shaped challenges’ are usually bigger than what we can handle alone.
Usually my first response is “who me?” “You’re asking the wrong person!” “There are many more qualified than me!!”
John Ortberg says “As a rule, the people whom we read about in Scripture who were called by God felt quite inadequate.” and that “our first response to a God‑sized calling is generally fear.”
Henry Blackaby adds,
Some people say, “God will never ask me to do something I can’t do.” I have come to the place in my life that, if the assignment I sense God is giving me is something that I know I can handle, I know it is probably not from God. The kind of assignments God gives in the Bible are always God‑sized. They are always beyond what people can do, because he wants to demonstrate his nature, his strength, his provision, and his kindness to his people and to a watching world. This is the only way the world will come to know him.
This doesn’t mean that God calls us in a way that violates our “raw material.” Where God calls, God gifts.
It does mean, though, that natural talent alone is not enough to honour a calling from God. I will need ideas, strength, and creativity beyond my own resources to do what God asks of me. It will have to be God and me doing it together.
We are not called just to work for God.
We are called to work with God
so that heaven might be poured out on earth!
Ps Mark