Matthew 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

No matter what people say, life is hard. Some have it much harder than others, but overall, for most of the world’s population, life is hard. Some people live with a disability or sickness that heightens the hardships of life. Others spend their lives trying to overcome a life bound up in poverty that only brings more despair to their hard lives. Therefore, we will need to choose our hard or, better still, choose our attitudes as we go through the hardships. Is it possible to get a break from life’s unpleasantness? With God’s help, we can, and thank God for those blessings. The Lord of the breakthrough is our Lord and a present help in time of need. 2Sam. 5:20 So David went to Baal Perazim, and David defeated them there; and he said, “The LORD has broken through my enemies before me, like a breakthrough of water.” Therefore, he called the name of that place Baal Perazim.

Some of the hardships of life have come in like a tsunami and have washed a lot of people down the road of despair. Many are looking for a way out from under the weight of overwhelming debt, the pressures to renew forgotten subscriptions that now cost a lot, and the constant frequency of the world’s unsettling noise that cannot be turned off. They find themselves serving a system of life that is continuously hard to live up to. Where did humanity make this transition from the gentle days of living to an anxiety-filled calendar? What happened to the green pastures of rest? Psalm 23:2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

One of the things I have trained myself to do, especially after the stroke I suffered in 2014, was to choose my hard. Life was going to dish out some hard things, so I had to choose what hard I was going to put energy into. I had to choose eating real food even though my fat cells were screaming for sweet and empty processed carbs. At the time, both activities were hard. The one choice was to indulge in the processed rubbish that was craved for and was making me sick, which was painful, or eat real food and repeatedly keep making the healthy choice that was hard to stay with. I had to choose my hard, and it paid off. Deut 30:19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.

I had to choose between sitting around and being in pain because of inflammation throughout my body or getting on an extensive exercise program that at many times caused pain in all parts of my body. One pain was killing me, and the other was healing me. I had to choose my hard. The choice is always ours to make. In the same way that the Lord asks us to choose to put on the yoke of the Lord so that we can learn to walk with Him at His pace and in His ways, we put on the yoke of discipline that gives us a healthier life in this hard world. We put on the yoke that teaches us the truth for living an authentic life. Matt. 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

In all that we do, there will be hard choices. We need to choose our hard that will give us purpose and lead us to better places in this life and the one to come. Many people are making some hard financial, marital, child-raising, and home-buying decisions that will be challenging. Some have packed it all in and moved to the country for a life’s pace they can manage. The world is in an uproar and mercurial when it comes to something solid we can hang our hats on. There is only one solid choice at this point in history, and it has always been the right choice throughout history. Christ, the Lord, is our solid foundation. We cannot find peace in the world system, because the world cannot give us what it does not have.

The King of kings and Lord of lords made some hard choices when He laid down His life upon the cross for the salvation of our eternal beings. The crucifixion was a hard choice to make, and yet, to God the Father and God the Son, it was the only choice that could save the world from eternal darkness. If God is asking us to make a hard choice, we need to remember that He knows what it is like to suffer for the sake of those choices. We have a Saviour who is acquainted with our suffering, and therefore, we can ask Him for the strength needed to overcome all the hardships of life. Isa. 59:19b When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.