The Motorbike

Travel is a huge part of our work here.

I have talked so much about our truck, that some people tell me they think it has personality.   (I do too)!  It has done such an astounding job of hauling all the materials for our building and making it on impossible roads!  Truly we spend an enormous amount of time in that truck struggling along.  God picked this truck out for us and it is a great truck. To me it is just like the horse, named ‘Old Charlie,’ which the Lord picked out for Ellen G. White.  When the Lord picks out the transportation for you– it is always good!

But now I want to talk a little bit about the motorcycle!

It has not been given any credit at all, when in actuality we use it a considerable amount of time, and don’t know what we would do without it.  It doesn’t have an easy time of it either.  Actually the going is never easy, whether you go by truck, bike or on foot.  That’s just how it is here.

This is a cold December morning ride into MeDeLeeGwee just last week. We put on anything we could find to try to keep warm.

I am never the driver of the motorbike – I always ride behind.

Now let me explain the ride!

1. When you first get on that thing, you had better trust the driver or your in for a bad experience because you are committed to whatever decisions he makes.  Your life is in his hands.  You will definitely follow every move he makes.
2. If he takes a wrong turn – so do you.
3. If he drives too fast for conditions – so do you.
4. If the road surface changes and he makes sudden turns in the sand and loose rocks – so do you.
5. If he hits the mud and slips and slides – so do you.
6. If he hits the puddles and gets wet and dirty – so do you.
7. If he selects all the right lines you could really enjoy parts of the ride, but if he chooses the wrong line and goes down – so do you.
8. I have discovered that even if he does not go down, there are some extreme road conditions where I have just flipped off the back, doing a complete 360 off the bike all by myself.  How that happens I do not know, but it has happened 3 times so far.  Yes the motorbike is a rough way to go.
9. If it is cold – you freeze.
10. If it is hot – you love it because it stirs up the breeze,
11. If it rains that is completely miserable, plus you worry about all the medicine and all your stuff getting wet and dirty.
12. To sum it all up it is truly painful the way you get knocked about.  Every bone in your body is beaten upon.

Compare this with our journey through this life:  A journey to righteousness!

1. I cannot help but think how much like our life’s journey this is.  In this journey there are just 2 drivers:  Satan and Jesus.  If you pick the wrong driver you’re going to have a bad experience and go down, but if you are committed to Jesus and put your life in His hands you can trust Him fully.  Following every move He makes, you cannot go wrong. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5,6
2. He never takes a wrong turn, but shows us the path of life.  Psalm 17:11  and leads us in the path of righteousness Psalm 23:3 If we take a wrong turn without Him He seeks that which was lost, and brings us back! Ezekiel 34:16
3. He does not go too fast or too slow for conditions. His timing is always perfect. (Galations 4:4)
4. He takes you through every change in your life, with painstaking effort, even when you hit uncertainties like shifting sand and difficulties that make your journey rough like rocks and gravel He will guide you safely through. “I the Lord do keep it.  I will water it every moment lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.” Isaiah 27:3  “Because they have no changes therefore they fear not God.”  Psalm 55:19
5. Many times our way becomes muddy and slippery-uncertain, but He holds up my goings in His paths that my footsteps do not slip.  Psalm 17:5
6. He will not let you get muddy and dirty from sin, for “He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.” Isaiah 61:10
7. He selects all the right lines, teaching us in the way we should go and guides us with His eye.  Psalm 32:8 Even in this life there is joy in the journey!  “Whom having not seen, ye love, in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 1Peter 1:8
8. He never goes down, but at times he allows difficult trials to come to us. If we do not learn to trust Him in the trials, but take our eyes off Him – we will flip off the back – a hard fall awaits us. But God is able to keep us from falling! Jude 24
9. When the people all around us are cold.  He can keep our love from waxing cold! Matthew 24:12
10. He brings the Holy Spirit upon us like the wind that blows. John 3:8
11. With Jesus the rain is the beautiful Holy Spirit.  Zechariah 10:1
12. Our bones are beaten up a lot. “For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.”  “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”  Hebrews 12:6, 11

Let’s say with David:  “Lead me O Lord in Thy righteousness. . . Make Thy way straight before my face:”  Psalm 5:8

Today, I choose the Lord to be my driver through life!   How about you?