The Lord often uses my motorcycle to teach me life lessons.
Some days I struggle with understanding what the Lord is up to and what He is doing in my life. There are times when He simply is silent, and I feel worn out. Like Bilbo Baggins said in Lord of the Rings, "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."
During one of those times, the enemy came, telling me to stop trying and just give up. Why try to serve a God who doesn't appear interested in your life?
I didn't choose to walk away, but I didn't affirm I was staying either. For a moment I just sat there, in the middle, feeling the weight of life.
But then I pulled my motorcycle out of the garage. Just looked at it gleaming in the morning sun.
I heard that still small voice of the Holy Spirit, "Do you really want to get on that without me?"
He is talking about more than just my bike, he is talking about my life. He's talking about living in this crazy chaotic world. A world full of hazards, like the road offers us each time we throw a leg over our bike and get ready to start off on a ride.
I get what He is saying. There are no promises of an easy life, not even a promise I will make it to the end of the day alive. He is asking me, like he asked his friends some 2000 years ago when many other disciples deserted Him (simply because His teaching was too hard for them to accept), "You do not want to leave too, do you?" John 6:67 (NIV)
Many, too many, have chosen to leave him. I have seen the wreck of their lives, like fallen soldiers in a battle field around me.
No, I don't want to ride without Him. Because outside of Jesus Christ, there is no life worth living. Jesus doesn't promise easy answers and a smooth ride. But He does promise to ride with us. He does promise life.
I sit on my bike, fire it up and answer the Lord, borrowing Peter's words from John, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68 (NIV)
Then I head on down the road with my God and Savior. Continuing to ride down the narrow path.
-MB
