Recently, Kristi and I had the blessing of some time away in Costa Rica. It is a beautiful country filled with wonderful people. The countryside where we stayed was mountainous and the roads were passable but only barely in places. But for the locals, the roads were no big thing – just a part of everyday life.
What grabbed my attention was the number of people riding bicycles. As I watched these brave souls going up and down and around, I was impressed by the way they had to attack the hills. Had I been on a bike, I most likely would have had to dismount and walk up the hill, dragging the bike with me. But they were trained through experience to make it up the steep inclines.
Of course, when there are ups there have to be downs. And so it was fun to watch these bikers reach the top and then get to coast. The only thing they had to worry about then was getting up to speeds that would cause them to lose control.
As I have pondered those scenes, I have thought about the ups and downs of life. There are always those times in our lives when we have to pedal hard to make the next hill – the next struggle. There often is little training for such obstacles – it is conditioning on the go.
And throughout life, there are those times when things are good and we can let up a little and coast. A little coasting is good. We need to rest and regroup. But if we get too comfortable, we lose the desire to attack the next obstacle. It gets easier to simply exist and not try. Comfort, and the desire for comfort, can overcome us. Kahlil Gibran, in his little novel, The Prophet, says this about comfort:
have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master? Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires. . . . Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.
When we allow ourselves to coast too much, we lose the drive to keep going. So today, I challenge each of us to attack that next hill. There will be time to rest on the other side.
Don’t quit. Don’t give up.
Pedal!
Clay in the Hands 