Those were the words which startled me as I waited before the Lord for an answer to my prayer.
“Keep on going?” I repeated, questioningly. I was somehow expecting something deeply spiritual, holy, highly motivational and inspirational.
“Yes. Keep on breathing, take one breath after the other, put one foot in front of the other and keep on going. Don’t worry about how you are going to work it out, just keep on going.”

I just was not expecting this mundane, common place response from God. God, especially if you learn about Him from the King James’ version of the Scriptures, always seems to come up with exotic, exquisite and unique advice. Anyway, this was what I got.

In fairness to the Holy Spirit, he then brought back the migration journey of the Children of Israel to my mind and I began to imagine what it must have been like for them, walking from place to place in pursuit of the promised land. I thought of the heat, the terrain, the scrub, desert life such as snakes and birds and the hot sands, burning sun, dark nights and all the sources of possible discouragement which they encountered. However, trusting in the guidance of the Almighty Jehovah, they kept on going, one foot in front of the other, day after day. Eventually they reached this land, stripped of the trappings of Egypt and prepared. They had been transformed from a band of food obsessed, runaway slaves, to a mighty fighting force, primed to conquer powerful foes and the challenging, unyielding terrain that was the character of their new land.

“OK. Lord”, I acquiesced in my heart, “I will keep on going. Not only that, I will tell my friends to keep on going too. When Life seems to overwhelmed them and they can hardly breathe because of the unexpected catastrophe that looms menacingly on their horizons, threatening to overtake them, then I will simply advise them to keep on breathing, one breath after the other.”

As I rose from my place of prayer, I pondered the simplicity and profundity wrapped in the Holy Spirit’s injunction. It needed no explanation. It was easy to understand and it reached down deep into the heart of my discouragement. You need not worry about your next move, or how you are going to strategize to solve your problems, just stop where you are at the height of your frustration, at the zenith of your despair, take in a deep breath, focus on exhaling. Release all the thoughts which swirl around in your mind, focus on each breath and just keep breathing. Let the devastating, overwhelming moments which threaten to engulf you wash over you and hold on to your breathing. After a while, you will find that the emotional storm has passed and the disasters which seemed so bent on your annihilation will become a little more manageable. Then you put your foot forward, take that one step and keep on going.

This mental exercise, while not solving the problem, will help you to bring your world into proper perspective. Emotions such as anger, frustration, grief, despair, discouragement, worry and anxiety often appear as waves with peaks and troughs. At their peak they seem intent on drowning or dashing you to pieces. In these periods you are likely to make more life altering mistakes if you allow them to drive your decisions, strategies, and actions. Waiting until they abate will give you time to get them under control, refocus your perspective and clear your mind so that you can take wise, purposeful and effective action.

The decision to keep on moving forward is your immediate means of taking mental and emotional control over your subjective and objective situations. Often you will find that your subjective perceptions are out of sync with your objective realities. On the day when I received this advice, I was absolutely discouraged. I had run into blank walls and had been blocked at every turn. I was ready to surrender, thinking I had smashed myself into all the dead ends there possibly were and I would just quit. I had even resolved this decision with myself. Concluding that although I wasn’t a quitter, sometimes in life we just have to throw in the towel. Wisdom dictated that after endless boomeranging and damaging myself against multiple insurmountable blockades, I should just abandon those particularly futile ventures. I could always find another dream or goal to pursue. Yes, I baulked at the thought of unfinished projects and discarded dreams under my belt, but sometimes I just would not win.

Shortly after this conversation with God, a small idea popped into my mind. Suddenly I began to see my situation in a different light. The way forward immediately became clear out of this reframing.

These moments of illumination are necessary to rebalance our two realities. We are either over reacting to situations which are not as bad or as hopeless as they appear subjectively to us, or objectively there are areas of hope and grace available to us which we cannot see because of our heightened emotional state. In other words, our objective realities are far better than we realize and what our subjective realities are telling us. If we keep on going, we will begin to push through the waves and soon find opportunities which were not previously immediately clear to us.

So, when those inevitable waves of grief, anxiety, disillusionment, disappointment, and discouragement roll in, take a deep breath, put one foot in front of the other and keep on going. in that moment you may not see the end of your journey, but there is a faithful God who knows where He is taking you. So, release your emotions, plans, activities and goals into His capable hands and just keep on going.