My dad, who is an avid biker and happens to be training to ride 100 miles for JDRF in August, mentioned he needed to get a 25 mile ride in on Saturday. So I excitedly, and naively, jumped at the opportunity to go with him. As we prepared our bikes, checked the wind speed and direction, got our water and filled our tires with air I was a tad anxious, ready to get on the road. We finally jumped on our bikes and commenced the trek. Not even three miles into the ride and I was panting. I consider myself an active person, but my heart and my lungs were getting a tough work out. At about the fourth mile my dad, his skill and his fancy speed/racer bike got ahead of me pretty good as we coasted down a hill, and when I caught up to him he said with concern, but not inferiority, "Are you tired Whit?" My indignant response, determined to not seem weak, was that I was fine. "If we need to slow down Whit, just say so."
How many times does this happen in our lives? As we prepare for the spiritual wilderness, making sure our lives are tuned and focused in the right direction, and then the moment comes to jump on the bike, into the hardship of life, and almost instantaneously we get weary. How many times does our father in Heaven tell us the same thing my dad said to me, "If we need to slow down Whit, just say so." Daughter/Son, if you're tired, exhausted and you feel weary--tell me. Our God who so compassionately and deeply desires for us to be free in our circumstances so that He can grant us a supernatural confidence that we are safe with Him and loved by Him. All He is asking us to do, is tell Him, confide in Him so that He can bring your heart rest.
We were about halfway, and biking against the gusty wind and hitting some pretty tough hills and my dad saw my exhaustion and offered me rest, "stay within a foot or less of my bike tire that way I break the wind for you so you can ride easier." Selfless.
How can we forget so frequently that close to our Father we find rest? When life and all of it's trials (1 Peter 1:6-7) tend to make us lose sight of our hope can we not hear the Lord telling us, stay close to me and you will find rest, draw near to me and I will draw near to you, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death I am with you. I don't know about you but man sometimes I need to bike a little closer and let the Lord break the wind. The devil can be so devious, so adamant, so determined to make us fail, to make us insecure and bring out our weaknesses. But we have to know that the Lord is offering to break the wind! He's desiring to take the brute of the pain so we can coast close behind him.
It's not always easy to get within a foot of my dad's tire. It takes extra endurance and strength in the midst of exhaustion go the short distance. But know this, He wants you to be close to Him more than your body aches for the rest you know you'll find. So in that moment, when we need a supernatural bout of strength and we ask the Lord to empower us with courage and perseverance to make it into the rest of His shadow, we will not only be empowered to get there, but when we do arrive we will be restored.
I about lost it in the middle of this bike ride when I heard my dad offer me selfless love and compassion, it was the ever so soft reminder that I am never alone, and that I can be confident that I always have My Father's Shadow to rest in.
Hebrews 12:28
:)
