Pedal It Out

The road of life takes an unexpected turn and the bible clearly states that there will be times that the unexpected will come and it may come without explanation or without human reason, but it will come.

This morning just minutes before stepping out the door to go lead a small group on a cold training ride my little sister calls to inform me that our father had passed away. I didn't know that the news was coming and had not really expected. My older sister called last week and said he was sick, but since we have not had contact with him in many years I didn't know how sick he was and I still don't know any details.

Today wasn't a day for me to revel in the training ride. I did go out and I started the group, but after a while thankfully big Cal took over with a diversion to the plan. That was a relief to me. The group showed their usual strength and went on ahead, but even though I didn't know my father very well my heart wasn't really into pushing a hard pace. I found myself way off the back of the group with a speed sometimes as low as 8 mph, but as the thoughts were going through my head my heart had lost the desire to keep up. I was grateful to be out on this cold sunny day just to pedal it out and try to deal with the news. How to deal with it was another issue and I suppose it is not over and why I am on this blog. Without going into details there is sadness in a way, but not like it might be when a father and son are close through life and the son feels a great sense of loss. For me and my sisters it is quite different, but still I feel a sorrow for the man.

One thing that stands out to me is how I was much like my father until the age of 32. Looking back on my past I was like a empty shell of a house that was cold and lifeless in my soul. I had chosen the wrong path in life, much like the path my father had chosen. I can reflect back now with honesty and see how a person that is empty of righteousness has a great danger of being filled with the dark cold nature of unrighteousness. "You are you father's son", some might remark if they knew my life before May 1996. Yes, I was empty of goodness until the Lord God in Heaven, the Father of Jesus Christ came to my empty heart and turned the light on. I can't explain it, but the same God that I had rejected for so many years reached down and helped me see how lifeless and dangerous I had become. Like my father I rejected all good or if I searched for something spiritual it was in the wrong place and it was to fit what I wanted to believe in.

In 1996 in a divine manner while I was drunk and alone at home, God changed my heart, helped me see the wrong I committed and filled my emptiness with His ways and I walked away from a life of selling steroids and violence. Not like my birth father anymore, though his sins were a bit different than mine, I can only be grateful as today I reflect on what my spiritual Father has done. The thing that I wondered today was there ever a time between when I last saw my father at the age of 19 until this morning when he passed into eternity that God reached down into his heart and gave him the same opportunity to repent and accept that precious gift of salvation, grace and mercy? Those were the things I found myself thinking about as I dropped off the back of the group as I could have easily been so selfish and pushed forward for another day of hoping to post up good data on my blog or into my training software. If anything I could at least reflect for a moment for a man that I barely knew and what I knew of him wasn't good, but to reflect nonetheless at least for a moment. If anything it just gives me more peace about what God did in my life and how He changed everything about me. I hope that if anything in these days I can be more like my new Father, who reached down and changed me and will change anyone who will call on the name of Jesus Christ to be their savior and recognize that Jesus Christ is the only one that can cover their past sins if they are willing to see the wrong that they have done.

Cycling outdoors has its greater advantages. I was better off out there on a back roads on my bike reflecting on this rather than trying to deal with it so publicly, but maybe someone out there is also contemplating what I am saying about a feeling of emptiness that cannot seemed to ever be filled with worldliness or earthly goods no matter how much they try. If anything I take an opportunity at an odd time in my life to say there is One that can truly fill an empty void in your soul. My earthly father could not do that and never attempted to, but thankfully my heavenly Father stepped in to lead me on a better path.