EPIC Ride

It’s funny how often sports principles can be applied to everyday life…Today I came up with a bit of an analogy after going for a bike ride with my brother, Ben (only two short days after extracting my wisdom teeth haha). As is typical of any post-ride, I was super hungry walking around (in a bit of a fog) looking for food. Today my thoughts took an unusual path as I began comparing the day’s ride with other past rides my brother and I have taken. This morning, my brother and I simply took a nice little leisurely ride around the beautiful Amish country that surrounds us, with our ultimate destination being home. In comparison to our four day, 342 mile trek from Pittsburgh, PA to Washington D.C. last summer, I just felt a real difference in motivation. Something was missing…Our D.C. trip is something my brother and I fondly refer to as an “Epic Ride.” Epic rides are the kind of rides that deliver loads of anticipation for the finish throughout the whole ride with plenty of challenges along the way (and I mean PLENTY). The excitement is like nothing else out there. Today’s ride, while a lot of fun, just lacked that kind of excitement and anticipation…After digging in a little bit deeper I finally realized the difference, and that is where the analogy comes from. The difference was the end goal…the ultimate purpose. While riding around close to home, knowing full well that home is your final destination, is all good and well, it is nothing like spending multiple days on a bike to get to a somewhat unknown destination. There are just so many unknowns in a ride like that, and the destination is not necessarily a place of comfort, but a place of achievement of purpose and contentment. So many things can go wrong…the weather can change in a moment, you could hit a tree (did that one!), you could get lost. There is no guarantee that you will even make it to your waypoints let alone the end. It makes the ride almost bigger than life, certainly bigger than you or I. So how does this relate to my life and my walk with God? It really just served as a nice analogy for my thoughts about the need to go into uncharted territory, away from “comfortable” home, to do something bigger than myself. Oh how crucial it is to serve a transcendent purpose; to adventurously go out into the unknown, take the challenges head on and serve the Lord, with the ultimate goal being the ushering in of His Kingdom. It is here that so much growth happens, both in yourself and in those you serve. Sure there are challenges and growth in “short rides,” but it is nothing compared to 100% putting yourself out there to serve something bigger than yourself…While I don’t know what exactly I want to do after college, I am certain that I won’t be content unless I am serving my Lord by serving others…it’s vague, but SO exciting to me. I truly want to live out the “epic ride” of my life as cliché as it may sound.

I will leave you with two lighter thoughts…

1) Every time I try to use the word analogy in something I’m writing, I completely forget the word. It’s weird, I know. It took me an hour to remember it this time.

2) As I said earlier, I had my wisdom teeth removed on Thursday the 21^st. My parent’s now call me motor mouth because I have been talking from the second I came off the anesthesia…What can I say? I love to talk! Good thing I’m a business major. Haha

Alright, that’s enough about my favorite hobby. God bless!