On Yer Bike.
When I was a child bicycles were a rarity. Not many kids had them. I used to see old men cycle to work on their old black bicycles with the thumb operated bell and the lights that worked from a dynamo. The lights faded and brightened according to the speed they were riding at.
Then one year, everyone got a bicycle for Christmas. I didn’t. We got other great stuff. But during the springtime as the lighter nights came in all the kids were cycling around the streets of the neighbourhood.
Then one night my dad came home from work with a bicycle. It was awful. It was of the old type that I watched the older men cycle to work in. It was terrible. My heart dropped.
My dad found it laying around at his workplace. It had been laying there for years. It would have been a 1940’s type bicycle with a little dynamo fitted that you had to twist in against the wheel to make it work. It needed new tyres and plenty of oil to free up the stiffened bearings.
It looked terrible when sat alongside all the other kids with their new bikes and racing bikes with the bent-down racing handlebars. Atleast, that’s what I thought about it.
Their’s were all colours of reds and blues whereas mine was black. The sort of black that old vintage cars were painted in. “You can have any colour you want so long as it’s black”.
I cried.
But my dad cleaned it up and made me get out into the street and start cycling on it. And pretty soon I was cycling along with the other kids. I remember the other kids laughing at me on this old bike. However, something strange happened. I was winning all the races and overtaking them. I was faster than them. What I didn’t realise that the bike that my dad had got for me was an adult’s bike. Therefore the gears were different. All the other kids bikes were made for kids their size. But, I guess since I was a little taller, I rode the black bike comfortably.
But a lesson always stuck with me. I remember that bike. But not with fondness. I remember being dissappointed in it. But I also have strong memories of the feelings of exhilaration that I felt as we cycled around the streets and roads.
You see - Sometimes God gives us something we don’t want so as to build us into something that He does want.
Remember the boy David when he brought food to his brothers at the Valley of Elah.
1st Samuel Ch17 (28) When Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, "Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle."(29) "Now what have I done?" said David. "Can't I even speak?"(30) He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before.
But David was not to be disheartened at their continued taunts. We all know the rest of the story of how David defeated Goliath and how he went on to become King of Israel defeating enemy after enemy.
But read what happens later when David is hiding in the caves at Adullam. He is in trouble, and Saul and his armies are looking to kill him.
1st Samuel ch22 (1) David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father's household heard about it, they went down to him there.
These same brothers, who years before had berated him so severly, are now here by his side supporting him. But David had to find his own courage and build his own achievements before people started to take notice of him.
And we have to do the same. We will always have our detractors, as David had his. But we are not here to impress those people. We are here to find and forge our own destiny with God. A destiny which God has already planned out for us to discover.
No matter what stage of life we are at – A young adult planning a career, marriage and a life ahead – A person who has reached the mid-point of their life and is assuming the responsibilities of their life – Or an older person who has lived their life, and is now watching other younger people working and building their lives – No matter what stage we are at God still has His plan for us.
That old bicycle was eventually left to the side and taken to the dump. But it served its purpose well at that time. It served it very well. And likewise, those old churches that I attended were left aside as I went on through my life. They don’t exist anymore, having been demolished to make way for housing. But they served their purpose. They served it very well.
But we still need to always remember that we are God’s children. And we need to always remember that when God says “no” to something, that means that He has a better “yes”.
I trust the ever-living God,
I need no other argument,
It is enough that Jesus died,
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