I love what Christian author A.W. Tozer said about challenges, “When I understand that everything happening to me is to make me more Christ-like, it resolves a great deal of anxiety.” Hebrews 12 talks about a loving God who draws us closer to Himself (i.e. holiness) by sanding off our rough edges and eliminating our drugs of choice through challenges.
As believers in Christ, challenges will always be part of our journey as we will not be completely like Jesus until we see Him (1 John 3:2). Since this is true, we might as well relax and enjoy the journey while Jesus cleans us up.
You are more than the sum total of your experiences because you have Christ living inside you. Yet, you are who you are and know what you know when you came to Christ and at this point in history. Think on that one for a second. Until you come into contact with the Word of God, Jesus and the Bible, how would you know to do anything other than what you are currently thinking or doing? You can’t act contrary to the way you think. Your behavior and thus your life will not change until your thinking is changed.
Our loving God has to bring challenges into our lives in order to get us to see that our way of living and thinking doesn’t work and needs changing. Once He does this, then we really have choices for the first time in our lives. We can choose Him or ourselves (Rom. 6:13).
If you love Jesus and want to be near Him, the Source of the good stuff, challenges will be the norm. Therefore, don’t fight the tough times. Choose to let Jesus use them to draw you closer to Him. Make the small choices each day, and guess what? You will taste the good stuff.

S“E”t Free Nowww