How are you doing?

Life is not lived according to the simple “scale of 1 to 10” model, is it? Even in our normal greeting of “How are you doing?” we infer that someone can sum up all the facets of their life in one score. Life is “great” or “hard” or “okay”. But, in reality it is never that simple. At any given point we have a complex mix of pleasant and unpleasant things going on. It rarely, if ever, is all negative (even when it feels that way). And, it rarely, if ever, is all positive (even when it feels that way). At times in life when we get hit with an unanticipated amount of unpleasant things we can overlook the pleasant things. The pleasant things are still there but we no longer see them. Life is “bad”. This leads to a downward spiral. At other times when we have something really good happen or have a bunch of pleasant experiences we lose sight of the challenges in life. They are also still there. But, they are out of sight because life is so “good.” While we may enjoy this for a season, it ends in disappointment. Because, when the hard stuff hits we are not ready for it. We want to get back to where life is all “happy” again. We should not try to reduce our lives to a single value. We are always blessed and we are always facing challenges. We need to be grateful for the blessings and ask God for the grace to face the challenges. Most of the time when someone asks us how things are going we don't have time to give a real answer. That is okay. But, when we go before the Lord in prayer, we should take time to tell Him how we are really doing.