Bike Racing and Faith

It has been a crazy couple of weeks since I last updated. I have done a lot of running which is not really my thing, but it is what the Army wants me to do. Over the last two Saturday’s I have traveled to different sides of South Carolina to race. My first race was pretty fast from the start and I got really blown away. , but the second one I took forth place. Both of the races were on the road and a bit of a change from cross country racing. The road races are much shorter and pretty much on red line for the whole time. There is something about racing in a large group at 25 to 30 miles per hour around a ¾ mile course. There is a lot of trust among the guys racing. Trust that you keep the line you started with when going around corners; trusting someone else is a tough thing, but trusting a perfect stranger is really blind trust maybe even called faith? It may just be a coincidence that I enjoy bike racing for it’s connection to faith, but it has often crossed my mind. We put a lot of faith and trust in God even though we have never seen Him. The other guys that I race with, I never met before, but I trust in their abilities to not cause me to crash. I have never met God face to face, but I trust in His abilities to get me through my difficulties. Now this is completely separate from my own skills, because sometimes I fail.
Among other things, I have been recovering from my field experience here at Fort Jackson. Many late nights and early mornings, but overall it was a good experience and kind of fun. We have been learning a lot of our responsibilities while being in our units and it really is interesting work, but it will definitely have its days. This past week we have been learning an Army program called Family Wellness. It is all about teaching soldiers to do family better. Being a soldier is a difficult job and responsibility. With the stresses of combat mixed with the extended time away from families it can be tough. Giving the families some tools and activities to maintain some sort of normalcy is what this training is all about. So far it has been good. I pray that all is going well with those of you back home. Thank you for all your prayers and support in Joy’s difficulties. She is doing better, but still no definite diagnosis on what is going on. Still might be a long road. Just a little over a week and I will be back home. I am really looking forward to being home.

Since being here at Ft. Jackson, I have some opportunities to rest, visit and struggle (mostly just the struggle part). I say that with just a little bit of humor, but I was not totally prepared to put my uniform back on and call myself a soldier again. I will get the struggle part in a bit, but the resting and visiting has been good. I am required to visit nine different services here and give review of them to my platoon leader. It is always interesting to visit a different service and give a critique on what I see. Most of the point to visiting these services is to open our experiences to the other denominations we may encounter while serving as a chaplain. I find it just a little difficult for the simple fact that when on active duty, I saw my share of other denominational services; some I liked, some I did not. Some preached the Gospel and some did not, but the point was to experience difference.
Now the resting part has been a little harder to define. I have not needed to prepare for sermons, but there are other things to prepare for. I have gotten into the habit of preparing my many bags for the next day the night before so as to rest a little bit longer in the morning. I have been able to squeeze out a few extra precious minutes of sleep by preparing early. My morning rituals have change a bit, but overall I have gotten used to the early mornings and late nights.
I had a devotion this past week that preached me great perspective into my life. It was based on Proverbs 25:28: Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control. Self-control is one of those things that can either paralyze or empower a person. If we have self-control we can understand its power when used correctly. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to race my mountain bike through the mountains of North Carolina for 63 miles. It took me 8 hours and was the longest I have ever been on bike at one time. Now what does this have to do with self-control?
There was a point, about 30 miles into my race, when I was ready to get off my bike and quit. I even told another cyclist, “My body is rejecting the bike.” It was difficult for my mind to control my body…the body was winning the war. The self-control had to come from my mind and tell my body to finish what was started. This is a place we may find ourselves from time to time; allowing our flesh to dictate where it is we are to go, but it is not what God wants us to do. Just as the Proverb says, without self-control, the enemy will walk right in and take over the city. If there is no security system in our own lives, the enemy will run amuck.
If we take a look at Nehemiah, he had a like experience, but it was with a physical wall. He was called by God to repair the wall around Jerusalem, and as he heard the news of what had happened to Jerusalem, he wept and mourned for days (Nehemiah 1:4). The lack of self-control should give us the same emotional response, because we let down God when we allow the enemy to breach the security of God’s word and take over. The main points we need to remember are that we will struggle, it is part of life, we need to train not only our mind, but our body as well, and of course it is not dependent on our strength, but God’s.
It is important to train our minds, but sometimes they fail us. Training our bodies keeps the muscle memory in check. I say this, because back to my 63 mile bike race about mile 50 my mind was shutting down, but because I had trained my body to maintain the course I was able to overcome and stay on track. It is two different parts working in unison. Of course the third part needed to work is the understanding that it is by God’s power that we will succeed. This doesn’t mean we can sit on the couch and pray God will take care of things. We need to engage in the battle and build up the walls and keep them strong to keep out the enemy. Self-control is a key aspect of our spiritual lives that needs to be a training priority. It may seem a little abstract to train self-control, but as we go throughout our days there are plenty of opportunities to build up that wall of self-control. Pray that God would open your eyes to those opportunities and build that wall.