672,768,000 Breaths

Do you ever notice your breaths? All your life you're exhaling and inhaling, often mindlessly. It's just something we do, something we're created to do, something we do involuntarily to stay alive. It's the heartbeat of our fragile physical lifespan. And yet, seldom do we ever take a moment to think of air, breath, oxygen...Where it comes from and where it all ends.
The average respiration rate for a person at rest is approximately 16 breaths per minute.
That means on average, we breathe about 960 breaths per hour.
23,040 breaths a day.
8,409,600 breaths a year.
If you live to the age of 80, you will take 672,768,000 breaths in your lifetime.
Except that figure is actually way higher because it does not take into account the increased respiration rate during exercise, or the higher respiration rate of a child. 
And did you ever stop to think that each one of those over 700 million breaths is a gift? A huge important gift that gives you life every time it's received into your lungs.
Who would love you enough to give you more than 700 million gifts? Who would be that generous? Certainly anyone but the allpowerful Creator of the universe. Why would he care about someone so small and seemingly insignificant as you? Why would he even want to give your broken, selfish, hurt, and dying body life time and time again?
But yet he has. Every day He chooses to make the sun rise, to continue to give you the breaths you need to fill your lungs with life-giving oxygen. Every day He gives you the strength in your muscles and bones to go about your daily routine. Every day He keeps your body and every intricate part interconnected to maintain your daily functions. And although we barely ever think about it...without God, you wouldn't ever take another breath. Your life is in His hands and His alone. Everything that has happened to you, is happening to you now, or will happen to you in the future, He sees. He knows everything you've done, even the secrets in the darkest corners of your heart that you're too ashamed to let anyone see. He knows. He sees the way you've treated people, the way you've turned your back on Him time and time again, the way you've lived your life so often in disregard for Him. But yet He never turns His back and stops the lifeflow. No matter what you say, how many times you take his name in vain, gossip, slander, or speak mean words, he continues to give you the breath to say whatever you choose to say. Don't waste that infinite immeasurable gift. Don't take it for granted. Use each breath for something of worth...Something of value...Something that will last.

Run

Running. Something I'm very inclined towards and very good at. Speaking figuratively, of course, not literally. Why? Because it's easier. It's a natural response, and takes much less thought, effort, sweat and tears than the other alternative does. After all, we are engineered to respond to threatening or dangerous things or situations with either fight or flight. The fight-or-flight response is a sequence of internal processes that prepares us for either struggle or escape. It is triggered when we interpret a situation as threatening.
Why is running easier than facing what threatens or scares us? I believe it's because when we run, we can focus all our internal thought processing towards the act of fleeing. Instead of thinking about the problem, we can instead focus on keeping as busy as possible giving us other things to think about and do at all times. We can try to use "happy" things or people or situations or places to give us temporary happiness and help us temporarily forget about the problem or threatening thing. But it's not permanent. And sooner or later, it will come back to haunt you....Because you cannot run forever. You just can't. It's not possible.
Of course, in certain situations the best thing to do is run. 2 Timothy 2:22 clearly emphasizes this point as it commands that we should "Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." When we are tempted to sin or to do something that we know is harmful to us or others, we need to run full speed away without looking back. 1 Timothy 6:11 says "But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness."

When, then, is it not the right response to flee? Well, maybe when you're struggling with situations in life that you just can't conquer on your own. So many people, myself very much included, would rather pretend everything's going alright and try their best to ignore the real problem even in their own minds. But somehow at some time that must end, and you must admit to yourself if to no one else that you are absolutely messed up and something must be done. You have to deal with things sooner or later. You can't turn your back forever. No amount of busyness, no number of friends, family or distractions can keep you from the real problems forever. And the sooner you can deal with things, work through them and put them behind you, the sooner you can go on with life and the fuller you can live your life when that has been done.
Months ago I took a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class once just to try it and see how it compared to the very similar martial art of Judo. In the middle of a fight after I escaped from a pin, I turned my back for a minute just to catch my breath. The instructor immediately yelled at me that "In BJJ, you never turn your back. For in turning your back to your enemy you admit defeat." This is a little different of an idea from how Judo works. In Judo, even in tournament, when the match has been temporarily halted due to a standstill or a partial score or a penalty, you usually have about 5-10 seconds to get up, adjust your uniform, catch your breath, maybe look over at your coach for a few seconds. The ref does not call for the match to continue until both contestants are standing on their respective sides of the mat with their hands up. In watching many matches I've noticed that almost always during one of these brief pauses, the opponent who is down on the scoreboard takes the longest to get back into the "ready" position and stalls as long as is possible without incurring a penalty. I think this is because they feel that their opponent is overpowering them and they have given up a little hope. They know that at some point they have to continue fighting, but they're reluctant because of a small previous defeat. 
In life, this compares to when problems and low points and circumstances have you down. When you get a chance to get up, sometimes it takes a while to get back that courage to continue fighting - because you have started to admit defeat. But after time of not fleeing but instead fighting with everything you've got, it will pay off. You'll be rewarded. When you resist evil, the devil will HAVE to flee from you. And you will be able to stand victorious on the battefield of life - nevermore to flee.