In the warmer months, I ride my bike four to five times a week.
My trek is about forty-five minutes to an hour. Toward the end of my ride, I see a hill that is significantly steep and long. I refer to this segment of my ride as “Heartbreak Hill.”
As I approach this incline and look to the top of the hill, I feel it is almost insurmountable. One day, I noticed a cement drainage ditch put together by ten to twelve-foot concrete slabs. Instead of focusing on the top of the hill, I kept my eyes on the next segment of the ditch. With one or two rotations of my peddles, I was past the present slab and on to the next.
I repeated that process, never allowing my eyes to get too far ahead of me. Before I knew it, I was at the top of the hill—and without feeling too winded.
In 1974 American country singer, Marilyn Sellars, recorded the song, “One Day at a Time.” The song’s adnomination is a scriptural way of Christian living, just as my looking at one section of the drainage ditch helped me get to the top of the hill.
We often focus on more than we can deal with emotionally or spiritually. Rarely are we defeated by one day’s problems. We lose the battle when we try to navigate present challenges while worrying about tomorrow’s potential problems.
Grace is the divine ability to cope with life’s difficult circumstances. Yet God does not give us grace today for tomorrow’s would-be problems. A large percentage of the things we worry about never happen. We waste our worry on what we cannot change because it does not exist.
So, what is the solution? We need to listen to God and not worry about tomorrow. We are not wired to take on present and future concerns simultaneously.
Take it one day at a time, and you will find that sweet Jesus will provide the grace you need for the journey.
(Photo courtesy of pixabay.)
(For more devotions, visit Christian Devotions.)
Ken Barnes has had a twenty-five year career in educational pursuits. He has taught in various public and private schools in Pennsylvania, Hawaii, and Virginia. He also worked for seventeen years with Youth With A Mission as a school leader, recruiter, and director. Ken holds a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places. He currently is a speaker, blogger, and freelance writer. Ken lives with his wife Sharon in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Visit Ken at https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/