One of the hardest things in life is to remember that you, as a single, individual being on this heavily populated planet on which we live and breathe, are honestly not that important. Unless you are, say, the President, you and your issues are fairly minute compared to the rest of the world.
I think the people that have the hardest time swallowing this all too important life lesson are teenagers. When you're under the influence of the hormones and the stresses of high school and every other factor that weighs so heavily on adolescents' shoulders, you tend to feel like your problems and your situations are entirely unique and that their magnitudes are totally misunderstood by those around you.
But the thing is...the things we, myself most definitely included, tend to freak out over really don't matter that much. I know. Take a second; it is kind of surprising. Specifically when one considers the number of starving or homeless or hurting people in the world. If our goal as Christ followers is to serve Him, why do we stress over chemistry labs or whether or not you've moved from being just friends with a guy to "talking" to him? (I hate this term, just for the record. That, however, is a whole 'nother blog post for another day.) Why do we get so caught up in the trivial things that are right in front of us when there's a bigger, grander picture on the horizons?
What is it that we're missing out on while we're focusing on the here and now?
And more gravely, who aren't we reaching while we're so focused on ourselves?
While it's important to not get caught up in ourselves, if God is honored through small things like that, they are important things. Things that matter to you matter to God because He loves you. At the same time, God is more concerned with spiritual growth than happiness, so that's also something to consider. Just thoughts.
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