When you are faced with difficult challenges

 

I am going through a difficult time at the moment. I am doing things at work that I find really difficult.  I have to make a lot of challenges in respect of how people do things.

It might seem cool to have a degree of authority, but it isn’t. You find yourself asking, ‘who am I to say these things?’  It’s a lonely and frightening place to be.  When people are challenged about practice they retaliate.  Sometimes I don’t find the best words and that gets me further into trouble.  Writing is easier to edit carefully.

Quite a lot of me wants to run away from this responsibility and retreat to being low profile and supporting the status quo. It’s harder than challenging in my personal life because my livelihood is involved.

In my Ladies Bible Group at LCF we had an evening studying the Book of Jonah. While I know the story of Jonah and the whale, until this point I had never read the Book of Jonah.

Jonah was a prophet who God wanted to go to Ninevah, but he didn’t want to go. He didn’t like the people of Ninevah and he was afraid so he ran away.

One of our ladies interpreting the book said that if God wants you to do something and you refuse, he doesn’t then give the task to someone else. He waits for you.

Your not doing things can also impact negatively on other people.

Apart from my work example I can also think of a personal example where I tried to turn my back on something, only to find myself right back to face it again. And I did.  And it was the right thing.  Bespoke.

What can you do when you are in the middle of it, when you are scared and feel alone and unsure of yourself?

Pray. Not necessarily to get your own way, but for guidance, reconciliation and repentance.

God loved the people of Ninevah even if they did bad stuff and wanted to forgive them.