We are busy people, all of us human beings. We’ve got jobs, families, appointments, obligations, and a variety of responsibilities. Even our children are busy…they are going to soccer practice or dance class, Tae Kwon Do or Little League. They have play dates and homework. Life on earth, especially here in the USA, has become known as a “rat race” for many, regardless of geographic location. We spend so much time worrying about our jobs and our schedules, we easily lose sight of the things that are most important.

When was the last time you bailed out on a friend because work kept you too busy, or barely had time for any quality communication with your spouse because you sprinted through your day and were too exhausted to give any more of yourself by the time you got home? I think this happens to most of us much more than it doesn’t. We allow ourselves to become convinced that we simply can’t afford to take our eyes off the ball of life. We begin to feel as though everything will fall apart if we don’t keep running the race. We feel competitive, struggling to feel genuine joy for the success of others, as we buy into the notion that their success somehow diminishes our own.

The problem with this is that when we choose to feel envy of what somebody else has in life, no matter what it is, we are telling God that our view of what our life should be is what matters most. We are telling Him we want the life He designed for somebody else, and not the one He designed specifically for us. As you can imagine, when we are approaching life with this attitude, it becomes much more unlikely that the plan and gifts God has placed within us will grow and develop as they need to, and thus will not live up to the full potential needed in order to accomplish all we are meant to accomplish. Nothing God has given us can be taken away. It can be given away. It can be thrown away. It can be left to grow stagnant. But it can’t be taken away unless we allow it to be. If you’re afraid of losing something God has placed in your life, you’re afraid of something that isn’t real, and allowing that fear to control your actions can cost you the very thing you’re afraid of losing to begin with.

By the same token, when we are focusing our energies on developing our own gifts and lives, working hard to recognize and follow the plan God laid out for us, we will face many challenges and roadblocks. The enemy of all that is good and pure in this life will do anything he can to thwart our progress. He knows our fears, anxieties, and greatest weaknesses, and he will use them to beat us down day in and day out. His primary objective is to keep us from our Heavenly Father. I sometimes hear people ask why God allows bad things to happen to people, whether it’s sickness, abuse, violence, etc. They feel that a loving God would, or should, prevent such things from happening.

I see things a bit differently. God didn’t promise us a life without pain and suffering. What He promised is to always see us through the hardships we face. When we are faced with any kind of difficulty, we have to remember that He is there to help us walk through it. If we show our trust in Him by continuing to turn to Him and to love Him, He will be able to take the scars and broken pieces of the aftermath and create something strong and beautiful. There is a peace that comes with being able to say, “Yeah, things really suck right now, but I know I’m not alone and I know it will get better.” But choosing to hide from our struggles by staying too busy to face them will only leave us feeling frazzled and out of balance. We have to learn to be still. We need to learn to tolerate the things that are hard, and in doing so realize that we can, indeed, tolerate them. Back in basic training the Drill Sergeants often used to tell us to “embrace the suck” of our circumstances. They told us that we had a job to do, and often times it wouldn’t be a very enjoyable job, or the job would have to be done under difficult conditions. Still, there was a job to do, so it would be to our advantage to “embrace the suck” of things, making it easier to do what was necessary, regardless of what we had to go through to get it done.

Don’t allow yourself to be just another rat in the race of life. It is not the way we are meant to live. We are meant to love and connect. We are meant to experience our lives and truly live them. We are meant to experience the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and especially the gift of sacrifice given to us by Jesus Christ. Life is going to be hard, even seemingly unbearable at times…but it’s always our choice on how to walk through it. We can choose to believe we are carrying it alone, and suffer the pain of trying to do so, or we can choose to accept the help that is always available to us, and feel the peace of knowing we are loved and supported every step of the way. Either way, the choice is ours alone to make.