Yesterday I went on a fantastic ride up Mt Kilimanjaro. I felt strong, with the abundant presence of endorphins in my body, I felt on top of the world (literally and figuratively). I felt strong enough to ride around the globe – after all, I had just conquered the hill twice in one day without stopping! What could stand in my way?
The truth is, that after we reached the foot of the hill, Ryan got a puncture. So I stayed with him and Neil to fix it. To cut a long (and quite humorous) story short, we were left way behind and had to ride hard to catch the other riders. Well no matter how invincible I felt, anyone who knows Neil and Ryan will tell you that I’m out of their league!
Riding ridiculously fast up a hill, I soon found that I was far from invincible. In fact, I felt quite near the end of myself and was wondering how on earth I was going to make it up the very long, “downhill” ahead of me. I soon realised I couldn’t – I blew-out. I am not yet a strong enough rider to ride for 4 hours, do a climb up Kilimanjaro twice and ride home at the speed of Cable.
But Neil and Ryan who are both infinitely stronger cyclists than I am, helped me do what I couldn’t do on my own.
I just thought about that a bit, and realised how similar my experience is to the Christian life. No matter whether you’ve “trained”, or feel strong and invincible, no matter how confident you are that you can do it alone, you cant. You need help in order to progress. We, as teens who have grown up in Christian homes, are familiar with the word of God, and are perhaps “learned” christians for our age, need to be humble enough to admit our limitations so that we can learn and accept help from those who are older and stronger in the faith. We aren’t there yet, we can’t do it alone, and we must learn to ask for help.
Just as it takes rides which push you beyond the limit – rides that require the help of others to become a stronger cyclist, so it takes help and wisdom from others to grow stronger in the Word of God! Don’t be stubborn and try to do it alone.
And of course our hero… Gareth the technical cyclist and his not so dry sense of humour:
The Silver Sword 
thanks for that post Antz. it was really encouraging. thanks. 🙂
ps-that “long and humorous story” wasn’t so humorous when i was nearly DEAD!!! 😉 but, as you can see, i’m quite alive so i guess it’s humorous now. 🙂
Great post,Ant.What a simple,yet profound, reminder that sometimes we need a “push”or two(or 10 =)) to get us through the ride.
Love the photo of Gareth.
Thanks for the great encouragement! Im so thankful that GOD knew our limitations and gave us friends who can “push us along”.