The TEN Speed Bike

Last night as Chris and I were installing a tile backsplash in our bathroom as one of the final steps in our renovation I started to think about my life in comparison to a bike, and not just any bike, but a ten speed bicycle.

Growing up as the youngest of three and as a daughter, it was always easier for my family to do things for me than to teach me. When I felt uncomfortable trying something new, asking for help become the norm, but as I get older and find myself more and more in unfamiliar territory I am finding it to be much harder to ask for help than I did as a child. As an adult I have become determined and somewhat stubborn about just doing things myself.

God designed us much in the same way that a ten speed bicycle was designed, with multiple facets and abilities to cope with the ever-changing terrain that we are confronted with. Unfortunately, most of the people in the world, myself included, would rather rely on someone else for help than to learn the needed skill for themselves. The truth is that most of us have gears that we never use, and probably never will. The problem is... Have you ever used the wrong speed on your bike when you are headed up a hill or perhaps around a curve? The reason the bike was designed with ten speeds rather than one was to make the ride easier and more enjoyable.

Not that installing tile is an impossible task, and not that I openly volunteered for it either, but on any given day of the week I would, typically, have hired a contractor to do the job. The house renovation has made me want more than ever before to learn how to use each of my "gears", and even before that, marriage instilled in me a new eagerness to be well-rounded and independently sufficient. Consider the different feeling that you get when you are asked for help to complete a task versus the feeling that you get when you have to ask for help.

Win Borden once said, "If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it is right, you will probably never do much of anything," and Charles Schwab says, "When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do."

My mid-year resolution is to take this to heart. With a little bit of humility and a lot of patience God will help me dust off my gears and test them out on some new terrain. Wish me luck!