faithful

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.

She had stored the instrument in an attic.

Attics are hot.

I know. I spent most of an hour in one today.

Sweat poured from my face and body—almost as if I were melting—while I completed my task. When I finally crawled out, filthy and soaked through, from the sweltering darkness I wanted nothing else but to escape outside to the relative coolness of the mid-eighty degree afternoon temperatures.

Attics are hot.

As I sat and drank down a cold bottle of water, my mind, as it tends to do, brought back the picture of the old lady, who has long since left this life. Thirty years ago, she wandered into my music store, carrying the large container that looked almost like a suitcase.

Her head shook up and down as she spoke in a squeaky voice.

“I’ve been holding on to this for a long time, but it won’t play anymore. Can you fix it?”

I opened the huge case and lifted out the ancient accordion. As I shifted it to sit on the countertop in front of me, there was a clatter from the interior of the instrument.

That wasn’t good.

The lady had left the squeeze-box with a friend she trusted for safe-keeping and the friend thought it would be safest in his attic.

Attics are hot.

All the reeds—the part of the accordion that air blows through to make the sound you can hear—are held in with beeswax. That’s all—beeswax.

You do know what happens to wax when it gets hot, right?. You know, like when you light a candle?

Sure, you do. It liquefies.

Every single reed had fallen out of place and into a huge pile inside the center of the instrument. It wouldn’t make a sound. Well, except for the jangle of loose reeds bumping against each other, it wouldn’t make a sound.

Useless. Absolutely useless.

Somehow, the remembrance of the experience—one that eventually had a happy ending, with a repair being effected and the instrument being saved for the lady—the remembrance brings to mind another story of great heat and complete failure.

The mind does run on, doesn’t it?

I have always loved to read. In my childhood, I was especially drawn to myths and fantasies, a juvenile escape, I suppose, from the hard and sometimes unhappy realities of life.

One of my favorite myths, probably a favorite because I have always dreamed of what it would be like to fly, was the story of Icarus. In Greek mythology, Icarus and his father were imprisoned on an island, but escaped by flying away on wings they fashioned from feathers and wax.

Icarus ignored his father’s warnings and, trusting the make-shift wings too much, flew higher and higher until the sun melted the wax, causing the feathers to fall off. He fell into the ocean below and drowned.

Both stories reminded me that good intentions—and even solid planning—don’t always work out the way we expect.

As I sat outside today, nearly back to normal, I realized words were running through my head—either the result of the strange line of thought or, perhaps, the cause of it. It’s hard to tell sometimes.

We’ve wanted to be trusty and true, but the feathers fell from our wings.

A week ago, a friend shared the song. I had never heard it before. The words hit hard as I listened, and moved me as much as any I’ve heard in recent memory. I found myself agreeing with the artist throughout.

Even though it’s not a Christian song, its truth is still profound.

I want to be dependable, to act as one who has proven, time after time, to be trustworthy.

I want to be trusty.

I do.

But, again and again, I do the thing which shows the disaster I really am.

Flapping for all I’m worth, my feathers have all melted away and I’m going down. Again.

The Apostle, my namesake, tells us he had the same problem, as well. The things I say I want to do, I don’t seem to be able to accomplish. The acts I want to avoid at all costs—those are the ones I find myself performing. (Romans 7:15)

Somehow, the heat is always on. Somehow, our feathers never will stay put.

And, the harder we try, the more the notes won’t sound.

Some would say we’re trying too hard.

I just say, we’re trying. And, we can never succeed in the strength we have. Never.

The problem is not that we're trying too hard, it's that we're trying at all. Click To Tweet

Every attempt we ever make at being trusty on our own will ultimately end in failure. Every one.

We fly, only when He gives us wings to do so. We make music because He puts the reeds into place.

He saved us, not because of our own righteousness, but because of His unending mercy. By the washing and renewing of His Spirit, we are His. (Titus 3:5)

Even when the heat is on, our faces dripping with perspiration and lungs filling with the filth of this world, we are His, saved by His Grace.

Time to fly.

Fly high.

The only One who is Trusty and True has us.

We just have to come.

We’ve wanted to be trusty and true
But feathers fell from our wings
And we’ve wanted to be worthy of you
But weather rained on our dreams.

So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich. Also buy white garments from me so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see.
(Revelation 3:18 ~ NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Trusty