Every day is a challenge. Basic things that you never thought about, you now calculate every step and every impact. Do you push or do you stop?

Work equates to more challenges in an already obstacle-driven world. Days of parenting and endless hours of motherhood and wife-dom create more unbelievable days of exhaustion and cliffs to fall in like in Super Mario. Days of worship are now severed with screens and distance and then you realize it has been quite some time since you completed an entire song on you choir CD in your car because the only place you drive is to the grocery store. Do you push or do you stop?

So many around you need you. And yet, you have nothing to give. You just want to hide under the covers in your bed.

Ministry looks different. Loving looks different. Time with the Lord looks different. There are only so many hours in the day and you long, yearn, pray that the coffee pot brewing doesn’t wake up your sweet precious blessings who long to beat everyone out of bed to start the day. Do you push or do you stop?

Recently I became an indoor cyclist. Sounds fancy and awesome. Nah – I just started riding a stationary bike regularly. On this bike there is a button for your safety that reads “push to stop”. And while it says push to stop, I continue to read push or stop. When you are riding with some of the greatest athletes in the world through places that you only dreamed of seeing – the adventure is challenging. And your legs do not want to keep moving. And your intensity slows. And as my girl Nicole says “that last half of the interval shows what you are made of, adrenaline is gone”. Do you push or do you stop?

I think of the times when the apostle Paul was imprisoned. How many times did the god of this age ask him to stop? I think of the cries of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and how they longed to stop, and yet kept pushing. I remember Elijah, Esther, Moses & so many more that faced numerous opportunities to stop and yet they chose to push. The scripture in 1 Corinthians 9, “Run in such a way you win. Everyone who competes in the games, exercises self control in all things.” We as people, must keep pushing. And not the pushing in the form that it may sound – we just cannot stop. These days are difficult, sure. Will the days ahead be more difficult, most likely. But instead of choosing to lash out against one another and stop running the race at all we must push – push love, push peace, push unity, push joy, push forgiveness, push tenderness, push kindness, push humility, push patience, push tolerance for one another in love, push truth and only dwell on whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, good repute, anything excellent or worthy of praise.

And maybe the statement is not push to stop or push or stop, but maybe the real statement is push and stop. I know what to push, but what do I stop? I love the book of Hebrews and the message it brings – chapter 12 says “let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…” What keeps me from breaking records on my bike in speed and endurance? What keeps me from exceeding my work goals set for myself? What keeps me from walking in the fullness that the Lord planned for me? What are the things that tie me down and keep me held captive and frozen? Every single time it has to do with the things that I put into my mind and body that lead to death – excess sugar, excess fear and doubt, excess complaining, grumbling or disputing, excess self love, excess pride & gossip and the list can go on for days. Today, I must push through the difficult and the obstacles that come and stop the whining and living in self defeat. Today, I choose to push through and fight for joy, unity, peace and love and stop hatred, dissension, gossip and chaos. The choice is always mine – how will I choose to live and be.

My girl Nicole of iFit said as we rode through the Utah mountains, “intense weather over a long period of time creates the most beautiful masterpiece in nature.” What is the beautiful masterpiece being created in your life?