Article January 22, 1972 Issue

Overcoming or Tolerating Difficulties

PAULINE B. RADER

If someone were asked whether he wished to overcome or succumb to some difficulty, there would be no question as to the choice he would make. But aren't we all given this choice at all times?

In the first chapter of Genesis, which is the true record of creation, we are told that God gave man dominion: "God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."^{Gen. 1:26;} We have been given supreme authority, in accord with the will of God, good, over whatever we may encounter in our experience.

Sickness, accidents, sin, and death try to assume reality and suggest that we are not made in the image and likeness of God and cannot avail ourselves of the power of God. Evil claims to be a power opposed to God and suggests that we are powerless to prevent or to overcome its manifestations and must therefore endure them. Because God gave man dominion, we have the right and privilege to choose to overcome difficulties rather than succumb to them.

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