LESSONS FROM CYCLING, Part Two

In my previous post I began sharing lessons I've learned while riding my bicycle. Lesson #1 was: Understand Momentum.

Lesson #2: You need to have a PLAN

Having a plan will enable you to set a proper pace, adjust your attitude, anticipate challenges (hills, wind, rough roads), and have an overall awareness of where you are in the ride (i.e. how close to the finish line)

How did you get where you are today? (Remember, God asking Adam in the Garden: “Adam, where are you?” Genesis 3:9)

Are you where you are because of disobedience? If so, then it’s possible that the challenges you’re experiencing are God’s discipline or PUNISHMENT. On the other hand, if you’re relatively confident that there isn’t blatant disobedience in your life, and you’ve been generally obedient to God’s call and claim upon your life, then you can rule out PUNISHMENT as the reason for your current place in life. Therefore, if PUNISHMENT is not the reason you are where you are, then what’s the reason? I know of two other possible reasons…PREPARATION and POSITION.

I’ve heard people ask the question: If God loves me so much, then why does He allow hard things in my life? Answer: God loves someone else so much, someone whom you will be in a position to influence in the future, that He intentionally directs your path through pain so you will be prepared “to give them the same comfort God has given” you! Before you protest too quickly, remember, God loves you so much He has sent someone to you (probably on many occasions), and that person encouraged you and reminded you of the hope that’s available through the God of all hope.

2 Corinthians 1:4 NLT “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.” The Greek word for troubles, is Thlipsis (thlip’-sis) and it means “a pressing, pressing together, pressure; metaph. Oppression, affliction, tribulation, distress, straights.” (Strong’s Concordance)

I’m convinced, from personal experience and from watching God work in the lives of others, that one of the reasons why we go through some of the things that we go through in life, is to POSITION us in God’s plan. 

C.S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain, said: “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” PAIN is a great attention-getter, motivator, and humbling tactic. 

(To be continued)