Keep Pedaling!

“Drive, and go forward; slack not thy riding…” —2 Kings 4:24

I remember my first two-wheeler bike. It was a Schwinn Mark IV Jaguar.  I got it for Christmas in 1962.  It had white-walled tires, lots of chrome, and three speeds.  I loved that bike, but somebody stole it.  My next bike was a Raleigh 10 speed.  Last year I took up the hobby of bike riding again.  I just purchased a new Trek, Navigator 3.0 with 24 gears.  With all those speeds it is a real pleasure to ride!  I have lower gears to pedal uphill and higher gears for going downhill.  I adjust the gears depending on the terrain or whether I am pedaling and gain speed or maintain my speed.

On nice days I occasionally ride my bike to the church office. There is one spot on the route to the church where the road grade descends very rapidly.  By the time I get to the lowest part of the road I’m moving along at about 35 mph or more.  However, immediately the road incline becomes very steep.  I switch to a lower gear and I pedal uphill.  By the time I’m at the top I’m in the lowest gear and I’m almost out of breath.  Without those lower gears, I would not have been able to pedal to the top.

It is similar to the Christian life with all it’s ups and downs.  Sometimes we need to adjust our spiritual gears to our circumstances.  We can’t always be traveling in “breakneck” speeds. Sometimes conditions force us to shift gears and slow down.

The key to bike riding is shift gears and keep pedaling.  If you stop pedaling you’ll lose balance and fall off the bike.  The same is true in the Christian life.  Keep pedaling and you’ll finally arrive where God wants you to be. As Paul exhorts us, “Be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord…” —1 Corinthians 15:58