Prayer Answered by Crosses

So I rode my bike 100 miles today, and as usual after such a mammoth effort, I feel compelled to stay up late and write instead of crashing hard like my body is telling me to do.

As I went, I was thinking about the ride at hand, an effort to ride every road in the very hilly lakeside town of Tega Cay, SC, and a verse from the sermon text at church this morning:

"the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’” (Mark 1:3 ESV)

"Yikes. Should I abandon this crazy ride route in favor of something more flat and straight?" "Is God telling me to abandon my goal of riding every road in the county this year?" Such questions plague my guilty conscience, especially since I've been struggling with pessimistic thoughts about riding and writing for a good part of the summer, as I've run into so many obstacles in my endeavors. When I first started in the spring, it seemed that God was smiling on the whole deal, but about the same time I sensed my countenance falling with the end of lengthening days, it seemed He wasn't pleased with much of anything I was doing, particularly my cycling endeavors. Texts like these seemed to condemn me:

Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread,
but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense. (Proverbs 12:11 ESV)

The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns,
but the path of the upright is a level highway. (Proverbs 15:19 ESV) 

The latter because everything connected with my riding seemed to be falling apart: my computer was acting more sluggish than normal (not that normal for a six-year old laptop is fast), and my attempt to streamline the process of uploading rides, as well as testing the battery life of the Garmin, backfired, including completely losing my best week of rides in July, and wasting $200 on a poor decision to have mycleanpc.com try to fix it. Then I realized I was broke and couldn't afford that anyway, along with other purchases or promises I'd been making with money I didn't have. This was largely due to working shorter hours in the spring and early summer to free up more time for riding and writing (thus the first verse above cut to the heart). Preparation for my second biggest riding goal of the year, the 24 hours of booty, didn't go according to plan, and I didn't come close to surpassing my ride from last year.


I took a week off after that, and my first ride back I was hit from behind by the most skilled rider I know while we were coasting and regrouping at an intersection. It was a total fluke, so much so that I couldn't be mad about it, and coupled with the previous frustrations, only sunk lower. I felt like Cain, whose countenance fell when the Lord had no regard for his offering, or like Jeremiah, who said "surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.", or even John Newton, who wrote:

He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.   from "Prayer Answered by Crosses"

Perhaps it seems silly to put so much weight into what's going on with my bike, and surely there are people right around me carrying much heavier burdens, but since it's an outgrowth of my profession, and in some ways almost a means of grace to me, and for several months this spring seemed to be enjoying conspicuous favor from God and man, maybe it's not so unreasonable that I've been disappointed.

Amazingly, the friend who hit me insisted on paying for the repair, which turned out to be as expensive as a new frame, so I took that route. I'm appreciative, but also uncomfortable with it; it's humbling, even humiliating, to receive like that.


In any case, the cracked frame led to another week and a half off the bike, and on the first ride back, the speedway team time trial, the seatpost slipped down, apparently due to a crack, and all I can figure is that the crash caused it too. Then I discovered a cut in otherwise good Michelin Krylion tires, which aren't cheap. What is going on here? Can I just make it a week or two without something on the bike falling apart so that I have to drop time and cash into fixing it? Light started to dawn with this:

I am mute; I do not open my mouth,
for it is you who have done it.
Remove your stroke from me;
I am spent by the hostility of your hand.
When you discipline a man
with rebukes for sin,
you consume like a moth what is dear to him;
surely all mankind is a mere breath! (Psalm 39:9-11 ESV)

Key word started. All of this is the reason I've not written for a month: I've felt opposed by God. What is there to say in such a state? Not much in my mind.   But I'm here writing, and that means something has changed, and it's related to these things as well as the text from the sermon mentioned above that was ringing in my ears as I rode today. More on that later . . .