According to Ms. Pettler this young man's only crime was being born in the wrong decade. He lived in the laid-back sixties. It was not until the stress-filled eighties, she says, that we became obsessed that others were getting ahead of us.

"Simply stated," she says, "People ARE getting ahead of you. All the time. While you're at your desk, people working out at the gym are getting ahead of you. While you're at the gym, your co-workers are getting ahead of you. If a friend gets a promotion at work, she has gotten ahead of you. If a colleague reads a book you haven't read, he has gotten ahead of you . . . While you're reading this book," she writes, "EVERYONE is getting ahead of you." The beauty of the concept is that it can be applied across the board, anywhere, anytime. For example, on the road, drivers of more expensive cars have gotten ahead of you, etc.

Can anyone relate to that? If you always have to be the best at everything you do, if you have to be the fastest or the smartest or the prettiest--you've got problems. Because sooner or later you're going to run into someone who does it better. You're going to run into someone who is farther along than you are. As someone has put it, "Just when you start winning the rat race, you run into faster rats."

God doesn't care about who gets ahead. We are all ahead when Jesus lives in our heart and is first in our lives... moment by moment, day by day.

Ron Newhouse