There is a drive in the human, well make that mammalian, spirit to overcome obstacles. One friend told me this week that he wants to find a different job because his current one is too easy. The pay is good, the boss is reasonable, the bennies are generous but he wants to solve bigger problems.

I suppose that is what motivates me to try more complex quilt patterns. I could just crank out log cabins from now to arthritis, but the lure of the Mariner's Compass and stained glass windows calls me. 

God knows this. After all He has risen to the challenge of every naughty thing concocted by His many children, trying to spin those misdeeds toward eternal happiness. 

He understands that if our relationships stayed as blissfully blipless as they started out when we flirted across a red checked tablecloth, in our perfumed prime and on our best behavior, we would get bored.  Even the dreamy eyed exhaustion of fresh out of the gate parenting would eventually get stale. So God ups the ante and gives us problems. Our obstinate selves fault Him with slacking on the job. If God were really God we would never feel pain. But that argument fell apart for me the first time one of my kids tried to convince me that a really good mom would do their laundry into their twenties. My grandmother actually bought the line, and my father mailed his dirty undies home from boarding school.  Then he joined the navy and the sergeant was not so much of a coddler. He ordered my dad to climb the radio tower on the ship which by the way was stationed in the Aleutians. For nine months daddy could keep down nothing but soda crackers. 

Now don't get me wrong. There are a few people whose portion of struggle seems especially gargantuan to my sea level perspective. But then I read a book like Lost Boy and stand in awe of someone who was dealt a hand with nothing above a deuce yet has risen to be an inspiration to millions of people. 

So I trust my own ability to calibrate difficulty less than I used to. I redirect my energy to learning how to fly through the air for a peanut.