What a Great Bike Ride

I love riding my bike.  I probably enjoy it too much.  It is rarely at the expense of my family as most of my rides begin and end before my family wakes up.  Over the past few years I have been able to amass some mileage that previously seemed unattainable to me.  But discipline and desire can really go a long way.  Of course there are certain days where I find it easier to ride than others.  And then there are routes that I find easier to ride than others.  You could say at times my desire to ride into the wind is not met with the least bit of excitement, neither the steep climb in front of me is always tops on my list of things to do. 

I love when I can go screaming down the hill at a pace that terrifies my wife to think about.  I love when on a flat stretch of road and test the heart and lungs and get my speed up really high.  There is something incredibly exciting about hitting speeds whereby when you catch up to another rider he can hardly hear you say hi (though I say hi every time) because you are moving so quickly. 

Of course I'd be foolish to ignore how necessary the cross-wind or head-wind, or monstrous (well, in Midwest terminology) climb in front of me are.  There is a great degree of strengthening that goes in in both the physical realm as well as in my psyche when I face these "undesirables."  When I realize my legs and lungs and heart are all working together and getting stronger as I face these it encourages me to enjoy the difficulty of it.  Further, my psyche changes entirely when I consider that I couldn't know what fast actually is of a downhill descent or of a flat section of road, if not for the polar opposites.  

And so church planting takes us through stages, pockets, hills, flats, descents...that are marked by a certain attitude and gravitation toward what is desirable and what we could go without.  But we are deceived if we cannot see that there is a great measure of purpose to all we endure, and our perspective is broadened and narrowed in other regards through it all.  But as I mature in my experience to labor in all of this I learn to enjoy it all, knowing that it is all for my good, God's glory, and the joy of others.  And so in that I hold on tightly, with anticipation for what is around the bend of this winding, uphill, downhill, flat, dark, bright, wet, dry, cold, and hot ride I am on.