One Can't, But...

About six and a half years ago, only about a year into my practice of blogging daily, I set myself an Analogy Challenge, in which I would try to find some Gospel-related message in any random object or idea I could think of. At that time, in my bedroom, there was a shape of paint near my bed that somewhat resembled a toucan, so I set myself the challenge of blogging about toucans. I failed. I could not think of anything blogworthy about toucans.

Last night, I realized where I had gone wrong. I was trying to blog about toucans, the creature. I should have blogged about toucan, the word. Or rather, two words. Two can.

We all face challenges. Some of us face very serious challenges. Yet, many people hope that they can overcome their challenges on their own or that if they wait long enough and pray hard enough, God will take away their challenges. Both of these approaches are flawed. While we may have some challenges that we can overcome on our own, some challenges prove to be too great for us. And while God is happy to help us in any way He can, He will not help us in any way that would actually hinder our growth. God won't solve all our problems for us, and we can't solve all our problems on our own. The only way for us to solve all our problems is to work together with God.

That's true for me as much as it is for anyone else. As much as I'd love to be able to solve all my problems on my own, I'm not quite at that level yet, and as much as I'd like God to some my problems for me, that wouldn't help me grow. God can't do it for me, and I can't do it alone. Either one of us on our own can't, but working together, we two can.

I know that's incredibly corny, and I know it's six and a half years late, but I'm glad I was finally able to squeeze a blog post out of "toucan," the word, not the bird. But you know, I think I had help with this. Specifically, I think I had God's help with this. God didn't write this blog post, but He probably inspired it, and then, with that inspiration, I was able to write this blog post. God helped me write this blog post. We did it together. With this Analogy Challenge, as with may of my challenges, I don't think that God or I would or could have done it alone.