I was taking a Cycling class at the YMCA the other day and an analogy about life struck me. If any of you have ever taken Cycling before, you will know that these classes can be very intense! I was thinking the whole time through the workout, "Oh my gosh this is so hard." But yet I loved it! (That's a whole other analogy though) :) Anyway, throughout the course of the class, the instructor has you do various patterns of pedaling: sprinting, coasting, going 80% of your max pace, uphill climbs, etc., all with varying degrees of resistance. For sprinting, obviously you need to have less resistance so you can go really far really fast. For uphill climbs, the resistance increases because you need something to push against as you ascend otherwise your legs will burn out too quickly. And for coasting or going a certain percentage of your maximum pace, resistance will vary based on how hard you want to work. So okay, there are just analogies all over the place with this, but the one that came to my mind was: COMPARISON. As I was going along through the workout, I started looking at the people around me and the speed at which they were pedaling during the various intervals. I started to compare myself to them, thinking "Why are they pedaling faster then me? I'm barely making it and I'm an aerobics instructor!" or "Hey I'm going faster than that person over there, I'm doing awesome!" But as I thought about it, it seemed really silly for me to even be thinking these things because, I realized, there is something you cannot tell from looking at everyone around you: what the person's level of resistance is! So here it comes... ;) We cannot tell sometimes (or most of the time) what a person may be going through just by looking. Sometimes it seems like OUR problems are so huge and our faults so insurmountable because just by "looking" at someone else they might "seem" a lot better than us in a particular area (or a lot of areas). Or we may be going through a particularly "uphill-free" stage of life and revel in our coasting and level 5 resistance, instead of seeing how we can help someone who is maybe at a 9 or 10. It isn't fair to judge EITHER WAY (being the one who has the seemingly "greater" trials or the one who achieves greatness and looks down upon those who are "behind". Who is really behind? Heavenly Father does not care how we are doing in reference to everyone else. He loves us as we are, and loves us enough to help us change into the kind of person He knows we can be, without measuring our problems or successes against others. This is an amazing gift and we only diminish the Atonement of Christ by comparing ourselves with others--we are all in need of His grace. I love this scripture:
"For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have....?" Mosiah 4:19
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4 comments:
Thanks, Leah!! I love it and wish we could sit up all night talking about stuff like that again. :) It reminds me of EFY when they'd always say, "are you listening with your spiritual ears?" to get us to relate everything to the gospel, cuz you usually can!! :) love ya!
You're so thoughtful Leah - I loved the analogy. I've been thinking about it the past few days while I've been working out at our YMCA. Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to record this little insight.
I thought this was really well stated. I especially appreciated what you said about helping others. Our separateness from the world is so often directly due to our selfishness. It makes me think of The Screwtape Letters; the devil can get us when we are doing poorly or well as long as we are letting him.
Mike recently came up with an analogy about this life being like training for the olympics. We are training for something huge not small and we are capable of majesty. I've been trying to keep that in mind as my perspective of the world and my life gets broader. So thanks for this.
p.s.I hope you got to go to your class reunion.
I loved this. Thanks :)
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