Article October 17, 1988 Issue

Words to live by

Relying on the Word equips us to meet challenges.

Jeannie J. Ferber

I grew up learning to get out of trouble. No, I didn't grow up on the streets; I grew up on golf courses, practicing to be a golf professional. The man who taught me how to play golf was a genius at "trouble shots"—shots used to get out of sand traps, roughs, woods, water hazards, and so forth. His unique strength as a teacher lay in his ability to equip us to play well under all conditions, not just ideal conditions.

I've often thought about this and related it to what has equipped me to deal with the human experience. It seems as if there are challenges that we haven't really been equipped to handle. We find ourselves in all kinds of trouble—fear of change or illness, lack of work or too much work, not enough love or the wrong sort of relationship. It's often hard to know how to keep going in such conditions.

And yet, we live in an age that has more access than ever before to "the comprehensive equipment" of the Bible. That's a term used in the J. B. Phillips translation of a verse from II Timothy: "The scriptures are the comprehensive equipment of the man of God, and fit him fully for all branches of his work."^{II Tim. 3:17.}

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