Tandem bike ride

Summer is blowing by SO fast.  We’ve been having the perfect amount of fun and maybe not quite enough sleep.  I’ve been super busy with something big I have coming up which has required some really early mornings for me (I’ll share more about that a little later this month).  I used to be a morning person.  Then I had kids.  And getting up before 8am feels like a crime.  One of the books on my “to read” list is The Miracle Morning.  I hope that can get me motivated to start my days a little earlier and get to bed at a decent hour.

In church this past Sunday, a friend of mine shared something that really got me thinking.  About God. And about trusting God.  It sounds so weird, but sometimes I have a hard time turning my life over to God even though I know he’ll do a better job.  I worry where He’ll take me.  That it won’t be somewhere I was planning to go.  I used to really stress about whether or not I was making the RIGHT decisions, but then I read a book by Donald Miller and it changed my whole perspective on the decision making process.

This little story, or poem, or whatever you want to call it, is helping me to trust God a little more (baby steps here people–I’m working on progress) and do my best to follow His guidance.  I thought I’d share it with all of you:

A Tandem Ride With God

I used to think of God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong, so as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die. He was out there, sort of like a president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I didn’t really know Him.

But later on, when I met Jesus, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike, but it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Jesus was in the back helping me pedal. I didn’t know just when it was He suggested we change, but life has not been the same since I took the back-seat to Jesus, my Lord. He makes life exciting. When I had control, I thought I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable. It was the shortest distance between two points.

But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places and at break-through speeds; it was all I could do to hang on! Even though it often looked like madness, He said, “Pedal!” I was worried and anxious and asked, “Where are you taking me?” He laughed and didn’t answer and I started to learn to trust. I forgot my boring life and entered into adventure. And when I’d say, “I’m scared”, He’d lean back and touch my hand.

He took me to people with gifts that I needed, gifts of healing, acceptance and joy. They gave me their gifts to take on my journey, our journey, my Lord’s and mine. And we were off again. He said, “Give the gifts away; they’re extra baggage, too much weight.” So I did, to the people we met, and I found in giving I received, and still our burden was light.

I did not trust Him, at first, in control of my life. I thought He’d wreck it, but He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, jump to clear high rocks, fly to short and scary passages. And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, Jesus.

And when I’m sure I just can’t do any more, He just smiles and says… “Pedal.”

(Author unknown)

My advice to myself–be okay to take the back seat.  Trust.  And just keep pedaling.