Name: Linda
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Using The Right Gear
I made it to the top of the hill without stopping!!!! Several months ago, my husband bought us both new bikes (Well new to us – they were a great deal at a couple of different Pawn Shops. It is amazing to me the great deals my husband manages to find at Pawn Shops, but I digress.) We did some riding until the weather got too hot. Then we began again on our camping trip.
For the past week or so we’ve been riding the three miles in our neighborhood that we usually walk. It is a great walk because it has several decent sized hills. The first time we took the ride, I couldn’t make it up the steepest of the hills – had to get off and push (humiliating). I couldn’t make it the next couple of times either. My husband told me which gears he was using and asked which ones I used for going up the hill. (I forgot to mention that these are very fancy bikes with a zillion different gears - nothing like the bike of my childhood that had no gears and pedal brakes). I told him which ones I was using. I told him I put it in the easiest gear to try to get up that steep “mountain”. He just looked at me. It turns out I was using the HARDEST gear. I thought the higher the number, the easier the gear. WRONG! It is just the opposite.
So today I shifted down to the easiest gear when I came to that hill – and I made it all the way to the top without stopping. When he heard me whoop, my husband congratulated me. Then he said, “That would make a good post for your blog.” As a little aside, you can see how much blogging has affected my life. I’ve even gotten my husband, who has no interest in writing whatsoever, involved. To continue….He said, “You were making things so much harder by trying to do all the work yourself when you had all the help you needed available to you. Once you used the help provided for you, you made it up the hill. That’s just like us as Christians. God has given us all we need, and yet we struggle to do things on our own. We worry and work and fret and try to figure it all out, try to be the best we can, when all along if we would just use the things He has provided for us – His word, prayer, the Holy Spirit – we could make it to the top of the hill.”
My husband didn’t want me to give him credit for this, but how could I not? I thought it was a great insight. I know it is absolutely true. I struggle with things the Lord is just waiting for me to put in His hands. He has given me all I need in and through His Son, but if I continue to try to live in my own strength, I will not make it when I am faced with a steep hill to climb.
There you have it - wisdom from God to Steve to me to you.
Blessings,
Linda
For the past week or so we’ve been riding the three miles in our neighborhood that we usually walk. It is a great walk because it has several decent sized hills. The first time we took the ride, I couldn’t make it up the steepest of the hills – had to get off and push (humiliating). I couldn’t make it the next couple of times either. My husband told me which gears he was using and asked which ones I used for going up the hill. (I forgot to mention that these are very fancy bikes with a zillion different gears - nothing like the bike of my childhood that had no gears and pedal brakes). I told him which ones I was using. I told him I put it in the easiest gear to try to get up that steep “mountain”. He just looked at me. It turns out I was using the HARDEST gear. I thought the higher the number, the easier the gear. WRONG! It is just the opposite.
So today I shifted down to the easiest gear when I came to that hill – and I made it all the way to the top without stopping. When he heard me whoop, my husband congratulated me. Then he said, “That would make a good post for your blog.” As a little aside, you can see how much blogging has affected my life. I’ve even gotten my husband, who has no interest in writing whatsoever, involved. To continue….He said, “You were making things so much harder by trying to do all the work yourself when you had all the help you needed available to you. Once you used the help provided for you, you made it up the hill. That’s just like us as Christians. God has given us all we need, and yet we struggle to do things on our own. We worry and work and fret and try to figure it all out, try to be the best we can, when all along if we would just use the things He has provided for us – His word, prayer, the Holy Spirit – we could make it to the top of the hill.”
My husband didn’t want me to give him credit for this, but how could I not? I thought it was a great insight. I know it is absolutely true. I struggle with things the Lord is just waiting for me to put in His hands. He has given me all I need in and through His Son, but if I continue to try to live in my own strength, I will not make it when I am faced with a steep hill to climb.
There you have it - wisdom from God to Steve to me to you.
Blessings,
Linda
8 Comments:
By jove, I think he's got it!! I had to chuckle about your husband getting involved. Mine rolls his eyes when I leave the house with the camera, but he has mentioned a time or two about something being good blog fodder.
Your husband's perspective on that was really good. I'm glad you shared it with us.
I agree with morning glory. His perspective on it is very insightful.
I'm very impressed. I really am. I'm laughing because if it were me, I'd be beyond humuliated beyond imagination. I'd be pushing that bike the whole 3 miles. I can ride a regular old girl's bike. I have never been able to figure out the whole gear thing. And here's a worse confession. I can't roller skate either. I am a mess on any kind of wheels. :-)
OK, I'm back. How's that? Two comments on your one post when I just did the world's longest post about keeping it under control? LOL I'm ridiculous. :-)
So here's why I'm back. Your comment on that post really means the world to me. I had to do something to get it all back into the right perspective. And I didn't want to lose contact with the great friends I've made out here, like you. So it's very encouraging to me to know that people really understand that I'm not being cold, I'm just doing what I have to do in order to be able to do this at all.
So thank you for telling me you understood what I was saying. Thank you very, very much for that.
Congratulations on the hill climb without stopping. How fun! You must be feeling pretty good about now.
I think it's so cool that your husband is thinking of blog ideas! Mine enjoys hearing about what others have to say.
Thanks for the birthday greetings. I'm trying to get caught up during the middle of the night - too much snoring going on up there and can't sleep! But, seriously, we had a great time in a lovely restaurant for the evening. My sweet husband brought his Bible to the restaurant and read Proverbs 31 to me as a tribute. I don't feel worthy of those words, but appreciate that he thinks I do!!
Hoorah for making it up the hill! I have a bike with the gears but couldn't do hills. Then a little girl borrowed my bicycle and she set it where it's the easiest for those hills and I have left it there!! Leave it to an 11 year old to know about these things!
Great post! We always seem to want to do things on our own instead of turning them over to God!
Yay for making it up the hill! My husband has also become quite the blogging assistant!
He has no interest in writing, but he knows that blogging is fun for me!
:-)
Love your post Linda; it is so sweet that you and your hubby go biking together. I am glad you made it up the hill. I love the analogy, so true, that alone we are nothing, but with God anything is possible. :)
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