Since you won the last challenge, you cannot be eliminated

When you are facing a particularly difficult challenge, the kind where you are seriously having to grit your teeth and make yourself get out of bed and face things head on, regardless of your instinct to do the opposite, wouldn't it be nice to know that if you did indeed make it through with your head held high that you would get some sort of "get out of trials free card?"  That is what I was thinking as I watched an episode of Project Runway the other day.  As the fashion designers were receiving the verdict on their designs for the week, one contestant was told by Heidi Klum, in her fabulous accent, "Since you won the last challenge, you cannot be eliminated this week."

How fabulous is that???  It didn't matter how badly the designer botched the assignment this week, she could coast through based on a great performance the previous week.  Think about that...the previous challenge winner could completely screw it up!  She could send a model down the runway without a stitch of clothing on her, and still be just as safe as the contestant who designed red carpet worthy haute couture.  

Ugh how I wish this were true in real life sometimes.  The truth is that handling one trial well, doesn't exempt us from the next trial coming down the pike... it just gives us the confidence that if we did it once, we can do it again... scratch that... if HE carried us through it once,  He can do it again!  

I was trying to explain this difficult concept to our son today.  As our family faces a trial, I was praising him for how he had handled everything that life had thrown at him up until this point, but I also told him that no one can ride in to tomorrow on yesterday's graces.  We have to choose to accept God's grace daily and never give into the temptation to say, "Okay, that's enough.  I've suffered quite enough, thank you very much.  I've handled previous challenges with dignity, but I'm done now.  This has gone too far."  If we do that, the previous challenges didn't actually have the needed affect.  They actually built our confidence in ourselves instead of building our confidence in God, and we set ourselves up to fail big time.  Choosing to meet the trial of today with a faith that I don't necessarily "feel" is a testimony that I believe my God is bigger than my trial.  And that kind of faith is worth more than a "get out of trial free card" any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

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