Faith

When riding a bicycle many of us take it for granted that if we push the pedals round we will go forward and not fall off. There are many complex theories of physics which allow that to happen. Do you need to understand them in order to ride a bike? Not really. You know from seeing others doing it, and from learning as a child, that so long as you push the pedals hard enough you’ll continue moving forward and you won’t tip over to one side. That’s faith.

That’s putting trust in what your parents told you the first time you tried riding your bike without stabilisers. You had to have some faith in what they told you, and in your ability to push the pedals round. You had to have faith that there are rules of momentum and gravity that all work in unison to allow you to achieve your goal – forward motion.

I recently started teaching my eldest son to ride his bike, stabiliser free. There was an initial mix of happiness and excitement, mixed with a good dose of fear. It takes time to trust, and indeed have faith, that it will work. We all need to practise, and grow our faith. I have a good relationship with my son, and from experience he knows I`m trustworthy, which means he feels safe exercising his faith.

Once you’re riding your bicycle regularly it`s a lot easier to keep faith. If my son hasn`t gone out for a few weeks to ride his bike it takes time for him to warm up to the idea again. He has to go back over the same things. If he rides regularly, his confidence grows each time.

The same applies with our faith. We need to initially trust God, and then work hard and practise our faith. The more we practise and gain experience, the more it grows. We must regularly be putting our faith into practice, so that it develops and grows, and we don`t end up needing stabilisers again.

We must remember, though, that to keep it going we need to work hard. It can be tiring to keep up the momentum, especially when we reach a hill. When we stop pushing our pedals round on a hill, it’s a lot harder to get started again. We will reach hills on our journey and there are two options. Stop, get off the faith bike, and then attempt to get going again, or press on with our strengthened faith muscles and keep going.

Do you trust God enough to exercise your faith? Will you regularly exercise your faith? Will you push through and develop your faith, so that when obstacles come you have the stamina to overcome?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, Thank You that You are faithful and trustworthy. Please increase my faith and place me in situations where my faith can be stretched and grow. I choose to follow You and trust You. Amen.