When Life Doesn’t Go as Planned, What Makes You Face Another Day?
Have you ever stopped and genuinely asked yourself what keeps you going? Not the automatic answers. Not the things you think you’re supposed to say. But the real answer. What makes you get out of bed every morning and face another day?
Is it your family? Your career? Your responsibilities? Your faith? The people who depend on you? Or is it simply the belief that tomorrow might somehow be better than today?
It’s an interesting question because sometimes the people who appear to have the most reasons to be happy are the very people quietly wondering why they aren’t.
You can have a loving family and still feel completely alone. You can have a successful career and still wonder whether anything you do really matters. You can spend your life helping others and still question whether you’ve made a difference. You can have people who genuinely love you and still feel as though nobody cares. You can be surrounded by blessings and still feel overwhelmed by burdens. And perhaps the most confusing part is that you recognize those blessings.
You know they’re there.
You know someone else would give almost anything to have them. Yet somehow, knowing what you have doesn’t always change how you feel. So what keeps you going when the things that should make you happy no longer seem to be enough?
The Things We Never Think About
Every morning, we wake up expecting certain things to happen. We flip a switch. The lights come on. We turn the faucet. Water flows. We turn the ignition. The car starts. We put our trash at the curb, and someone comes along and takes it away. We walk into the grocery store expecting food to be on the shelves. We receive a paycheck and expect another one in two weeks.
We rarely stop to consider how much work, planning, infrastructure, and cooperation make these ordinary conveniences possible. They’ve become automatic. Expected. Almost invisible. Until something stops working. Suddenly, that light switch becomes a problem. The car that won’t start changes your entire day. The water that doesn’t flow becomes more important than almost anything else. Something we barely appreciated yesterday becomes something we’d give almost anything to have back today.
And I wonder whether we approach our lives the same way. We become so accustomed to what we have that we stop recognizing its value. Until we lose it.
The Life Someone Else Wishes They Had
Consider the contradictions we encounter every day. The person who is unemployed desperately wants a job. The person who has a job dreads going to work. The person who is single dreams of having a loving family. The person surrounded by family sometimes wishes they could have a few moments of peace. The person struggling financially dreams of having enough money to stop worrying. The wealthy person worries about losing everything they’ve built. The healthy person rarely thinks about what their body allows them to do. The person facing another medical procedure would give almost anything for one ordinary, pain-free day.
And sometimes the person who spends thousands of dollars on medical treatments begins wondering whether the expense, discomfort, and uncertainty will ever end. Not necessarily because they don’t value their life. But because they’re tired. Tired of appointments. Tired of bills. Tired of waiting. Tired of wondering whether anything will improve.
We can be grateful for our lives and still be exhausted by the circumstances we’re living through.
That’s something we need to understand about ourselves and one another. Because suffering isn’t a competition. Someone else having greater problems doesn’t make yours disappear. And having blessings doesn’t mean you’re incapable of feeling overwhelmed.
When Nothing Seems to Change
I think one of the most exhausting experiences in life is doing everything you know how to do and still finding yourself standing in the same place. You work hard. You make responsible decisions. You try to treat people well. You apply for opportunities. You make phone calls. You seek advice. You pray. You try again. And again. And again. Yet somehow, nothing seems to change. It’s like walking on a treadmill. You’re moving. You’re working. You’re exhausted. But every time you look around, the scenery is exactly the same.
People tell you to be patient. And patience is important. But patience feels different when you know what you’re waiting for. When you’re standing in line at the grocery store, you know you’ll eventually reach the register. When your car is being repaired, you generally expect someone to finish the work. But what happens when you don’t know whether the thing you’re waiting for will ever happen?
What happens when you don’t know whether to keep trying, change direction, or accept that something you desperately wanted may never come? Sometimes the hardest part of life isn’t the struggle itself. It’s not knowing when, or whether, the struggle will end.
And that’s when the question becomes especially difficult. What keeps you going?
Tomorrow Has Problems of Its Own
There’s something Jesus said that I think deserves more consideration than we sometimes give it. In Matthew 6:34, He tells us:
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” — Matthew 6:34 (NIV)
Notice what Jesus didn’t say. He didn’t say tomorrow might have problems. He didn’t promise that tomorrow would be easier. He didn’t suggest that having enough faith would somehow eliminate every difficulty waiting for us. He acknowledged that each day has trouble of its own.
That’s an important distinction. Jesus wasn’t teaching us to ignore responsibility or stop preparing for the future. He was teaching us not to become so consumed by tomorrow’s uncertainties that we lose our ability to live today. Yet how often do we do exactly that?
We worry about next month’s bills while sitting in a home with electricity, running water, and food in the refrigerator. We worry about whether we’ll have a job next month while overlooking opportunities to make a difference today. We worry about what our health might look like next year while failing to appreciate what we’re still capable of doing right now. We worry about relationships that may never develop, opportunities that may never appear, and problems that haven’t happened.
And while we’re doing all that worrying, something extraordinary is happening. Today is passing us by.
We spend so much time trying to figure out how we’re going to survive tomorrow that sometimes we forget we’re supposed to be living today.
Give Us This Day
There’s another part of Jesus’ teaching that connects directly to this. In the Lord’s Prayer, He teaches us to ask God to give us our daily bread (Matthew 6:11). Daily. Not yearly. Not monthly. Not even weekly. Today.
I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to have the next six months figured out. Actually, I’d be delighted with the next six weeks. I’d like to know which doors will open. Which opportunities will work out. Which problems will be resolved. Which relationships will grow. Which prayers will be answered. I’d like to see the plan. Preferably in writing. With dates. And maybe a few guarantees.
But that’s not usually how faith works. Sometimes God provides an answer. Sometimes He provides an opportunity. Sometimes He provides another person. Sometimes He provides strength we didn’t realize we had. And sometimes He doesn’t change the circumstances nearly as quickly as we’d like. That doesn’t mean every difficulty is part of some hidden reward waiting around the corner.
It doesn’t mean every disappointment will suddenly become a success. But it does mean that we don’t have to understand the entire journey to take the next step.
Sometimes faith is simply trusting God with today when you have absolutely no idea what tomorrow will bring.
What If You’re Already Making a Difference?
There’s another question I think we should ask ourselves. What if your life matters in ways you’ll never fully recognize? We tend to measure our lives through accomplishments. The career. The income. The house. The marriage. The recognition. The things we’ve built. The goals we’ve achieved. But what about the things that never appear on a résumé?
The conversation you had with someone who desperately needed encouragement. The kindness you showed a stranger. The friend who knows they can call you when everything falls apart. The child who remembers something you taught them twenty years ago. The person who read something you wrote and found the courage to face another day. The person whose life became a little easier simply because you were there. You may never know what those moments meant. You may never receive recognition. You may never hear the words “You made a difference.”
And yet, the difference may have been made. Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes we make is assuming that because we cannot see the impact of our lives, there is no impact.
We want evidence. We want results. We want reassurance that our efforts matter. But not everything meaningful comes with a report showing what we’ve accomplished.Sometimes the smallest things we do leave the greatest impressions.
And sometimes the people who make the biggest difference are the very people wondering whether they matter at all.
Being Weary Doesn’t Mean You’ve Failed
Galatians 6:9 encourages us not to become weary in doing good. I’ve always found that interesting. Because it acknowledges something we don’t talk about enough. Even doing good can become exhausting.
You can be doing the right things and still feel discouraged. You can be serving others and still feel unappreciated. You can be working toward something meaningful and still wonder whether your efforts are accomplishing anything. You can have faith and still have questions. You can trust God and still feel uncertain. You can love your life and still wish parts of it were different. None of those things automatically means you’ve failed.
Sometimes it simply means you’re human. And being human means there will be days when the weight feels heavier than it did yesterday. Days when patience seems impossible. Days when you’re tired of waiting for something to change. Days when you wonder whether you’re going in circles.
And days when you need to stop, look around, and remember that even if everything isn’t the way you want it to be, not everything is lost.
What Keeps You Going?
So let me ask you again. What keeps you going? Is it the people who love you? The people who depend on you? The work you still hope to accomplish? The relationships you haven’t yet experienced? The possibility that something wonderful could happen when you least expect it? Is it your faith? Your sense of responsibility? Your belief that God still has a purpose for your life? Or maybe you don’t have a clear answer right now.
Maybe you’re simply doing the best you can with what you have. That’s okay too. But I want to challenge you to consider something.
What if you’ve become so focused on what isn’t working that you’ve stopped recognizing what still is?
The lights came on this morning. The water flowed. The car started. Someone somewhere may be grateful you’re part of their life. There may be someone who needs the encouragement only you can offer. There may be an opportunity today to make a difference that has absolutely nothing to do with your career, finances, health, or circumstances.
And perhaps that’s where we need to redirect our attention. Not toward pretending our problems don’t exist. Not toward convincing ourselves that everything is wonderful. But toward recognizing that our problems are not the entirety of our lives. There is still something worthwhile in today.
Don’t Miss Today Waiting for Tomorrow
I don’t know what tomorrow holds. Neither do you. There will be challenges. There will be disappointments. There will be circumstances we can’t control. Jesus told us as much. But tomorrow isn’t here yet. Today is.
And maybe today doesn’t require us to solve every problem, achieve every goal, or understand every disappointment.
Maybe today simply asks us to recognize what we’ve been given and decide what we’re going to do with it. Call someone. Encourage someone. Help someone. Appreciate something you’ve been taking for granted. Take one step toward something meaningful. Rest if you need to. Ask for help if the burden has become too heavy.
And remember that your worth isn’t determined by how much you’ve accomplished or how many problems you’ve managed to solve.
You don’t have to change the world today to make a difference in someone’s world.
So, when you wake up tomorrow, and the worries begin to creep back in, remember what Jesus taught. Tomorrow has enough trouble of its own. You don’t have to carry all of it today. And if you’re still wondering what keeps you going, perhaps you can begin with a different question.
What can I do with the life God has given me today?
Because while we’re busy waiting for life to become what we think it should be, there’s a very real possibility we’re overlooking the life that’s happening right in front of us. And that would be a terrible thing to miss.
Don’t spend so much time waiting for tomorrow that you forget to live today.
