TACKLING A CHALLENEGE

We’re back from vacation. It was tough being in Phoenix in the midst of a North East winter; sitting by a pool, dipping in the hot tub and drinking 40 ‘Caramel Machiatas’ (recipe is two squirts of caramel, vanilla and double espresso!!! Our daughter and husband live in a ‘resort ish’ sort of complex with the critical ‘help yourself’ coffee bar… Here you can get that caffeine fix day and night. Gratis. And Sara, having been a ‘Barrista’ at Starbucks, taught me how to make my favorite… By the time we left I’d dived into enough of that caramel coffee to pay for my flight to Arizona and back!
And now we’re back to regular coffee, no hot tub nor pool and colder weather! We’re back to routine; ready to tackle the challenges before us.
There are 3 steps to manage challenges:
1. Keep it cool: Don’t overheat or you’ll feel like a spaceship returning to earth; a lot of heat. Heat never makes for an easy passage because of the danger that you may burn up. A cool head evaluates the circumstances and allows for a strategy to unfold. When David met Goliath, the giant that was out to kill him and all his countrymen, he realized that if he got close he was in for some serious trouble. He recognized the danger and chose to keep his distance and use the best ability he had; the slingshot. Smart move… and David lived to tell the tale. Goliath did not. David kept his cool.
2. With God’s help, nothing need defeat you: Be confident! God did not make you and then abandons you. He said that he’d be with you always, to the very end of time. Our oldest daughter needs to buy a car. Jo Ann told me I’ll be going out with her as a father should. So, you know what I’ll be doing!!! We’ll make sure that whatever she gets has a decent warranty on it. This will give us confidence in the deal…. God’s promise is that he sticks by that which He has created, and that’s you and me. If we can trust the guarantee from a car manufacturer, do we trust our Maker any less?
3. Refuse to be discouraged: Once the seeds of discouragement set in, we have started the journey to defeat. I am an ice hockey goaltender. When the puck gets by me, I face a stark reality… I messed up or ‘stuff happens’. The former makes for a terrible game, I fight the puck and lots get by me. With an attitude of ‘stuff happens’, I’ll stop the very next shot. And the one after that too. I’ll evaluate what I may have done wrong and adjust my strategy so that the next puck that comes flying my way will not get into the goal.
Refuse to be discouraged when you miss something and you get stung. Pick yourself up and go at it again. Life’s reality is that we encounter challenges day after day. There is no way to avoid them but there is a way to manage them and emerge victorious. Use the 1, 2, 3 step startegy. It works.