The man said, “I’m planning to go…if the weather looks like it will be okay.”
I have proof he said it.
I would have just gone on Wednesday. I should have just gone on Wednesday.
Instead, I put on my gear, my gloves, my helmet, my shoes—yes, even my lycra shorts—and went to the old Post Office to await the start of the group bike ride.
The weather didn’t look like it would be okay. If Christopher Robin had been there with an umbrella saying, “Tut. Tut. It looks like rain,” I would have believed him. It did look like rain.
We rode anyway. Five miles we rode north, thinking we’d skirt the precipitation, which looked to be heading south. It didn’t work.
We rode in the rain. A total of thirty miles. Eight of us rode. Side by side. Stretched out in a line. Scattered a quarter of a mile apart. We rode in the rain.
I had a reason for being there. I don’t know about the rest of the idiots.
My friend—the one who sent that text—is going halfway around the world for a year. He’s leaving next week. I wanted to have a last ride with him.
So, we rode. In the rain. For a reason.
Do you ever wonder why? Why am I doing this now? Here? In this dismal circumstance? Is it worth it?
I wondered. I did.
As I struggled to see through the moisture-laden lenses of my glasses, each one covered with a hundred little kaleidoscopes of water beads, I counted the cost.
When the water splattering up from the tires of the seven other cyclists in the group drenched my socks and soaked my cleated leather and cloth shoes, I considered the foundational reason for my current circumstances.
And then, as I rode close behind the cyclist ahead of me, my front tire just inches away from his rear one, attempting that all-important labor-saving maneuver—drafting—I got a faceful of dirty water. The rooster-tail of moisture splattering up from that tire hit me full in the face, turning the kaleidoscopes on my glasses into chocolate mud I could barely see through.
Still, as I backed off from the airborne cataract, my straining eyes peered at the back of the fellow whose bicycle was the source of the annoyance. I could read—just barely—the words printed on his cycling jersey:
If it’s not fun, why do it?
I couldn’t help it. The laugh just came out; from somewhere down near my belly, it erupted.
Why, indeed?
But now, a few days on, and a shower or two having helped to rid all the wrinkles in this old body of the residual mud, I’m not laughing.
I don’t know about anyone else, but somehow this road I started down under blue skies and with gentle breezes has turned downright uncomfortable. The gear I pulled on before the ride began protects me not at all from the elements—neither the driving rain nor the blazing hot midday sun.
Somewhere along the way, the gentle rolling slopes bordered by pleasant meadows became a mountain climb with sheer dropoffs on either side.
I’m not having fun anymore.
Maybe it’s time to turn back.
But, something tells me it was never about fun.
Somehow, I get the feeling it was never about comfort.
And the Teacher told His followers that they would have trouble along the way. Understanding their concern at that prospect, He went on to remind them that He had been all along the way and they needn’t be fearful since He had finished the entire course. Not only finished it but had been victorious. (John 16:23)
There are things in this world worth suffering through.
There are.
There are things in this world worth suffering through. There are. Click To Tweet
Friends (and people in general) are worth getting wet for. Telling the truth is worth being laughed at for. Being generous to a neighbor is worth doing without ourselves.
Standing firm in the storm, when that’s all we can do, is worth the toil and danger.
We’ll finish the ride up ahead. In front of us. Through the rain and grime. And the heat and sweat. And the climbing and weariness.
Ahead.
As we approached the end of our ride the other day, my friend who is headed overseas rode beside me into town. At a corner not far from his home I made a left turn. He went straight. Several blocks on, me having made a right turn and he having made a left turn, we met up again.
Strange, how that happens.
He’ll leave next week for the other side of the world and I’ll stay here. Both of us, still on the journey.
The same journey.
Headed for the same goal. It’s where he always says he wants to end up when we start out on a bike ride.
Home.
You could ride with us, too, you know. Side by side. Or in single file, drafting. Except when it rains.
Headed home.
Soon.
It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.
(Herodotus ~ Greek historian ~ 5th century BC)
I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
(Philippians 3:14 ~ NLT ~ Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2018. All Rights Reserved.
