Letting God Control the Ride

I had actually planned on blogging on something else this week, but on the ride in to work this morning (the weather has been great for riding by the way!!) lots of thoughts started popping into my head. So I figured God was leading me in a different direction today.

When riding a motorcycle you don't actually have to do as much work as you would think you would. And as I was riding in this morning a few things crossed my mind that I thought I would share. Arthritis runs in my family...not fun to look forward to. I don't have it per say, but I'm afraid it may be coming. When I ride the joints in my thumbs tend to start getting really stiff and even worse if I start gripping the handle bars too tightly.

When you ride a motorcycle, you really don't have to grip that tightly unless your pulling the bike up off the kick stand. And actually, if you grip it too tightly while your riding, it's actually harder to control. You have to learn to relax and let the bike do what it was meant to do. One of the hardest things to do on a bike is to go really slowly and I don't mean from the stand point of having a lead foot! If you are traveling through a busy area you have to obviously go much slower. Going really slowly is tough. If much harder to keep the bike upright when you are moving slowly. You don't want to keep starting and stopping so you travel with just the slightest acceleration to keep you moving.

But the bike isn't meant to travel that slowly. It's meant to take off. And once you are able to take off, the ride is much easier and much more enjoyable. You basically let the bike take control of the ride. It's meant to be upright and moving right along.

Isn't that how we sometimes are with God? We want to grip everything too tightly. We say we want to live for Him but we travel so slowly we are pretty much standing still. We won't loosen our grip on our lives and what we want. We don't just hop on, take off, let God take control and enjoy the ride.

God is meant to be in control of our lives, not us. I wonder how much more we could do... how much more I could do... if I let God be in control. God did not create us to grip too tightly, too move too slowly or to be in control of His plans for us.

He created us to relax our grip on this life, to not be afraid to move forward and to let Him have total control. I know this is an ongoing battle for most of us; but imagine the things God could accomplish through us if we would only sit back and let God take control the ride! What a ride that would be!

Enjoy the ride!!

Blessings!

Riding Bikes, Hanging Out With Friends & Communing With God

We had a wonderful but busy weekend. We went to Abilene to see Moonlight & Magnolias on Friday night and had dinner Friday night and lunch on Saturday with Jeremy. We came home on Saturday, went to church on Sunday and then headed out Sunday afternoon on a bike trip with some friends to Longview and on to Jefferson on Monday. We had a great time!!

The weather was great and there is nothing better than riding, except riding with friends! We rode 360 miles this weekend! We had the best time. You would have thought we were all in high school the way we were laughing and carrying on in the lobby of the hotel; until 2:00 a.m. I might add. (The next day I didn't feel like I was in high school! I felt like the 40 something woman I am on only 5 hours of sleep!)

We stayed up just talking, playing spades and having some of the most wonderful pie I have ever eaten. If you ever head to Longview, go to "The Butcher Shop" and have some chocolate pie! You won't be sorry!!

There is nothing like riding a bike through the back roads of East Texas to make you really stop and appreciate God. When you are on your bike with the wind blowing all around you and driving through some of the most wonderful trees, you can't help but think of God and all He created. There is nothing like it in the world. It really gave me time to reflect on God and the priorities in my life.

I've been thinking about priorities for a while now. Mine have seemed to be way off lately, or maybe not so off. But I do think it's a time for refocusing. The priorities of the last 22 years have been my kids. Loving them, raising them and attending all of the events they were in was what we did and pretty much who we were. While I loved that time dearly and will miss those times, I realize that God is calling me in other ways. I have really been reflecting a lot on how I spend my time now and becoming aware that God is calling me to something different in my life. I'm not sure where is He leading, but I know that I need to be aware of His calling and pay attention to opportunities He may put before me.

I know that God wants to use me to make some kind of impact. And it doesn't have to big. It reminds me of the impact of skipping rocks on water. When you skip rocks, sometimes they just skip lightly across the water making impacts every time they hit. You can see all the splashes in the water and see all the impacts they make. But sometimes when you try to skip a rock it just plops in the water. And while it only makes a plop and doesn't skip across gracefully, it still makes an impact. There are still little ripples in the water from where it dropped in.

I think sometimes we get too bogged down in trying to do something big. Trying to make huge graceful skips across the water. When sometimes just a big plop in the water still has its impact.

I'm not going to try and make huge skips across the water. Someday I may and then again I may never make that big of an impact. But I hope I can always make at least a little ripple in the water. A little ripple that spreads through the rest of the water and touches something or someone. I don't ever want to leave the water still. Even a little ripple can make a difference.

Blessings!