Countdown to Triathlon - 290 Days to Race Day (See Installment 6 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below)

A Thought for the Day

To get something you never had, you have to do somethng you never did.
The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.

In other words, I have to do things I've never done before to accopmplish something I've never done (a triathlon).

It is always interesting to me how God gets my attention.  I have been carrying an index card in my Bible study binder for months which had the above words on it.  I don't know where I got the card and I've seen it many times.  Today, it fell out of the binder and I saw it through new eyes.  Is this training for the triathlon God's will?  In 2001, God actually told me to do the bike ride.  However, this endeavor is the total opposite of the bike ride.  I didn't inquire of Him about this triathlon. He didn't tell me to do it.  My sister and I just decided we would train for it and participate in the race.   I would imagine that He would think it a good idea since our bodies are  be the Temple of the Holy Spirit and I have not been treating my body as such. This training would certainly be a good thing for my body.  But I'm not God, thank God, and I don't read His mind.  Therefore, I am asking Him if I should do this triathlon.  I am now praying that if this is not His will for me, that He would slam the door shut on the opportunity.  For instance: if I broke my legs; my artificial knees popped out of my skin;  if I  got hit by a car; or the triathlon committee emailed me to say there had been a mistake and I am not really registered and there are no places left;  then I would know it isn't His will.  But until I hear otherwise, I will continue on course.  I won't use the excuse either,  that the training is too hard and say that God must not want me to do it then.  I have asked God to forgive me once again in my life, for plowing ahead and then asking.  Will I ever learn?

Don't you just hate it when you think of some really great thing to share with someone; something really inspirational, so magnificient that you just can't believe it.  Then you forget what you were going to say.  What a waste.  In fact, I told several people today to be sure and read the blog today because I had some really great thoughts to share.  You wouldn't believe how wonderful they were and now they're gone out of my mind. I'm really embarassed that I said anything about it this morning until I had committed the ideas to paper or the computer.   These ideas must not have been that great after all or I would surely be able to remember them.  They sure seemed inspirational at the time.  It reminds me of something our Bible Study Fellowship teaching leader, Pam, said this morning. She said that God knew before He even created the universe what his plans were to be and how they would be carried out.  I had to smile when I heard that because I thought, "It's a good thing I'm not God, because I would have made all those plans, then would have forgoten how I was going to carry  them out."   I don't suppose any of you reading this have experienced that phenomina.  Forgetting seems to be occurring more often these days.

rev·e·la·tion    n.

1.

a. The act of revealing or disclosing.

b. Something revealed, especially a dramatic disclosure of something

     not previously known or realized.

2. Theology A manifestation of divine will or truth.

I feel that God has revealed to me by way of Bible study, that perhaps I have been prideful.  We've been studying in Bible Study Fellowship, the Book Isaiah. We have learned that  because of Israel's and Judah's unfaithfulnes to the Lord, He was going to send the King of Assyria to discipline the twelve tribes.  Assyria came and captured Israel and came up against Judah, overtaking the outlying towns  clear up to the gates of Jerusalem.  The King of Assyria was proud and didn't consider that what he had done was due to God's intervention.  He claimed that everything that happened was because of himself, the king.  He pridefully announced that it was his strength, his wisdom, his army, etc.that accomplished the capturing of the tribes of Israel and most of Judah.   The Bible is quite clear that God hates pride and that pride goes before a fall.  There are many other verses which tell of how much God hates pride. Because of his pride and because the king tried to do things that God had not intended him to do, he and his army were destroyed.  My prayer must be that I not let pride creep into my efforts.  I must remember that whatever I do is by the grace of God.  His gives us His  grace.  We don't earn it.  It is unmerimeted or unearned favor from Him.  He gives it to us freely if we'll accept it and His Son Jesus.  It is quite easy and very human that when someone compliments us on our accomplishments that we allow ourselves to be puffed up or as they say, "to get a swelled head".  I must gurad against that at all cost.  I want this triathlon to be a blessing to me and others.  I don't know how God will use this experience or if He will.  But I must be willing to to be used by Him. 

The Journey - Installment Six


LET THE TRAINING BEGIN

            As with most good intentions, I had intended to start training on the newly acquired bicycle from my customer (the girl’s bike), immediately.  By the middle of February of that year I had sixteen months to prepare for the ride.  That seemed like a lot of time to get in shape and I knew that I would need every bit of that time. However, it seemed that there was always something that got in the way of taking the time to train.  Before I knew it, July was upon me and I had less than a year.  That was a very sobering moment when I realized that the time was dwindling away without my having made any effort at all.  I decided that I could not send out letters asking for donations until I had several months of training behind me and had lost some weight.  I was fearful people might worry that I would not complete the task at hand and they would have contributed their hard-earned money for nothing.   Since many of the people from whom I would seek donations were not Christians, the very act of contributing to a ministry unknown to them would be based on their desire to help me reach my goal and I had to demonstrate that I was doing my part.

            The first part of July 2001, my Pastor, the Reverend Don Slaven, asked me with whom I would be riding.  Since we lived out in the country, he felt it wasn’t safe for me to be riding alone.  When I replied that I would have to ridie alone because there was no one to ride with me, he said he would ride with me three or four times a week.  The only problem was that he didn't have a bicycle.  By this time, I had picked up Mike’s bike and had discovered that it was definitely too tall for me, even with the seat lowered.  I called Mike and told him about Don volunteering to ride with me and asked if Don could borrow his bike until he could buy one of his own.  Mike agreed and I gained a riding partner.  How interesting that his bike was a perfect fit for Pastor Don and I had earlier wondered why God had given me two bikes to use.  God had a good reason.  The next day I took the tires in to the bike shop to have heavy-duty tubes replaced on my customer’s bike, purchased an odometer/speedometer and water bottle to prepare to begin riding with Pastor Don the next morning.  I made a practice ride to the corner, which is one-quarter mile, and back home again.  I made that trip twice which totaled one mile – the first mile of the ride.   I wondered how I would ever ride more than two hundred miles when my legs hurt on that short distance.

            Early one morning, several days later while I was waiting at the corner for Don, I was straddling my bike with my feet on the ground, contemplating the bike ride which was now only 10-1/2 months away.  I spoke out loud to the Lord about my inability to comprehend how I could possibly complete such a long ride the following June.  The strangest thing happened.  It was like a movie being played in my head.  I could see myself on a bike.  There were no other riders in view.  This movie even had sound because I could hear my breathing, which was labored, and I could see that I was hot and perspiring.  At that moment, standing astride my bike with my feet on the ground, I was rather cool because it so early in the morning before the sun was even up above the horizon.  I had only ridden a quarter of a mile from my house and I was not hot or perspiring.  I recognized at that moment, that God had generously and graciously given me a preview of the ride to encourage me and show me that I was definitely going to be a part of the National Bike Ride for the Family.

            Having received this confirmation, I was so excited that God would take time to encourage me like that.  But as human beings, we often tend to be quite fickle and have short memories.  Some weeks later I was again discouraged by the fact that I was only riding ten to twelve miles per day.  Don had not been able to ride with me and I was having difficulty pushing myself to do what needed done.  This was the perfect opportunity to allow Satan to slip in unnoticed.  A thought even crept in and I began to ask myself if perhaps I really didn’t hear the Lord tell me to do the ride.  Maybe it was not real but just my imagination.  I quickly dispelled this notion because I knew that I never would have thought about doing this ride myself, not in a million years.  Satan would not have suggested it because all the glory was going to God . I was telling everyone all that God was doing to encourage and help me.   Satan would never wished for God to get the credit.  So the Scriptures came immediately to mind, “Submit yourselves, then, to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7) and “Get thee behind me Satan!” (Matthew 16:23; Mark 8:33; Luke 4:8).   I would repeat these two Scriptures many times over the coming months.