[Steve Myers] What's going on in your life? Life can be stressful sometimes. It seems that life just comes at you at 100 miles an hour some weeks and sometimes it just seems like it doesn't end. And it just is a grind to get through it. It's a challenge. And it just seems that there's always something else coming down the line.

Have you ever felt like that? Well, how do you handle that? How do you handle situations where, where it just starts to bring you down a little bit?

You know, when it comes to God's way, I think an important thing to remember is what comes at the end. Because when we get down, when we get discouraged, when we're stressful, remember the end especially when it comes to what God has in mind for us. Remember the end. You might even think of it like a finish line.

You know, we've got a finish line that we're shooting for and of course that's the Kingdom of God. We've got the finish line. We're looking forward to the time when Jesus Christ will return, when finally the Kingdom will be established and there will be peace. There will be safety. There will be a time of great joy that we can look forward to.

So, as we're facing the challenges that we have - sometimes every single day - remember the end. There's a great passage, it's in Galatians 6:9 that says that we're not to lose heart. Don't lose heart. Don't become over weary because we're going to reap if we don't lose heart. So Galatians 6:9 reminds us of that.

And of course there's also another important aspect of this is that every single day we've got to realize that even though we face challenges, living God's way involves sacrifice. There are sacrifices involved. There is this sense that we've got to continue to run that race. And so remember, following God's way is a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice that we have to do what God has called us to do. There's an interesting passage. It's over in Hebrews chapter 12, right at the very beginning of that particular chapter. Hebrews 12:1, here's what it says, it says, "Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let's lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let's run the race that's set before us with endurance."

So we have to keep running that. So we've got this finish line that we're looking forward to. We've got to run that race. We've got to keep running. We've got to keep moving on no matter what the challenge is. When we remember the end, when we remember that we're not going to lose heart, we're going to continue to sacrifice, we're going to continue moving forward and we're going to run that race with endurance, because we're not running it alone.

We're not running it alone. God is with us. He's helping us. He's guiding us. He's leading us. And so we can face the stress of the day because we're not running that race alone.

Now there's one other thing I think we should keep in mind as well and that's the fact that you know we can have rest. It's not always a grind. It's not always stressful. It's not overbearing constantly because God's allowed us to have rest. So when we understand that fact we realize that every week there's a rest we can look forward to. We can look forward to the rest on the Sabbath. We can take a break from the stressful world around us and we can have rest.

In fact, Christ talked about that over in Matthew. In the book of Matthew, Matthew 11:28 Christ talks about the fact that we can take His yoke, we can learn from Him. And He said His yoke is light, His burden is easy. And so when we think about it in those terms, we can have a break. We can have rest. And in fact over in 2 Timothy chapter 4 we are reminded of this. I'll write this one down as well. 2 Timothy chapter 4 - hopefully you're able to read that - and in verse 7. Here's what the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, he said, "I've fought the good fight. I've finished the race. I've kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7).

And so when we keep running to that finish line, ultimately it's not only just a weekly rest, but ultimately it'll be rest in the Kingdom of God.  We can look forward to the time of the return of Christ where ultimately, finally, we'll reach that point that we'll have rest when Jesus Christ returns in His Kingdom.

So when life gets you down, when you're faced with stress, when you feel like, "I'm just not able to go on," maybe you can keep these things in mind. Remember the end. Continue to run that race. Look to the finish line. Keep going. You're not running alone. And ultimately, look forward to that weekly rest. That will keep in mind the ultimate rest that we'll have in the Kingdom of God.

That's BT Daily. We'll see you next time.