The Right Amount of Challenge

Most games have difficulty settings. Usually, games can be set to Easy, Normal, or Hard, though other difficulty settings that are especially easy or especially hard aren't unheard of. In addition, games can be made harder or easier by how they're played. Players can use certain playstyles and abilities to make the game easier, or they can restrict themselves to more difficult playstyles or making themselves to meet additional requirements to make the game harder. Through the use of various settings, abilities, and playstyles, players can adjust the game's difficulty until it's just right for the experience they want, so it's challenging enough to be rewarding and easy enough to not be frustrating.

Life's not quite like that. Sure, we can make life easier for ourselves by using more effective playstyles and abilities, and we can make life harder for ourselves by limiting ourselves to less effective playstyles, making ourselves meet additional requirements, or giving ourselves handicaps, but we are unable to adjust the difficulty settings of life. That's God's job.

God gives people tougher challenges because He knows who's tough enough to handle them. He teaches us the most effective playstyle, so we can play at the top of our game. He asks us to meet additional requirements, but He offers us additional assistance when we do. By adjusting the levels of challenges and assistance He gives us, God can adjust the difficulty settings or each of our individual lives until they are just right for each of us. By adjusting the difficulty of our lives, He can give life just the right amount of challenge for everyone, enough to make us work and grow, but little enough that we can actually rise to the challenge and, with His help, win.

Sometimes, life is challenging. But if we follow the right playstyle and make good use of the abilities we've been given, we may find that, thanks to God's influence, our lives give us just the right amount of challenge.