Is life a test or an opportunity?

There are many milestone identifiers used by those evaluating and observing our lives as to our character and substance from which our lives derive both purpose and meaning. Milestones are those clearly visible moments, events, statements or actions which define us as an individual. It could be said that life and the living of life is a challenge and that every step of the journey is a test. When the words: challenge; journey; or test; are written, these could trigger an array of different reactions and or individual responses. A challenge by my definition is something that causes everything within me to get ready. Whereas a journey, I would describe as a trip that could end up landing anywhere, it has no set location goal. Along the journeys of our lives we leave markers indicating we were once here. Each of these milestones can be highlighted differently. Sometimes the achievements in our lives are bright shiny signs that leave lots of information about how our journey brought us to this point while others dictators of our travels would be best described as clues leaving those observing the responsibility of putting the puzzle pieces together. There are individuals who live life as if it is like a basketball game which provides network tv timeouts, you can call your own team time-outs, others teams can call their own time-outs and you've even got an extended break at half-time to recover, re-think and even re-evaluate your 'life' game plan. If you are the type of person that likes to be in control then living your life through the trust of faith will never be easy. Letting go, (or more clearly written so there is no misunderstanding in my meaning of 'Letting go', means you have released your grip and you no longer are maintaining any control) and you are facing every challenge and life not as a test, but all the unexpected things in life as an opportunity for you to live another day of your faith in the view of others to evaluate and observe. Until then