Take a good look at what's in the baskets!There is something about riding the motorbike that makes me think about this journey of life.
Today I was out with Chau, riding to the bookstore to look at materials for the girls to study Vietnamese as part of our school day this coming year. It was very hot (well over 100), but a beautiful day, and not bad with the wind as we rode.
Driving in Danang is always an adventure. The traffic is ever unpredictable. There is always something new to see--animals strapped, tied, or put in baskets lashed to a motorbike, furniture deliveries using bicycles with carts tied to them for delivery trucks, large water cooler bottles strapped in every possible configuration to a motorbike... Still, whatever the weather, whatever the view, we motor on towards a destination, taking it all in, marveling at the ingenuity or grimacing at the danger of it all.
It is a bird's eye view of this life with Jesus, I think. In peace or peril; unnerving or uneventful; filled with fun, frustration or fear; with the wind to your back or sand flying in your face; still, we keep moving on.
This morning in our staff devotion time, I was thinking about the journey of this past year. It's been quite a ride. At times exhilharating, other times exhausting...always an experience. :) It has been where "the rubber meets the road" for me spiritually--facing things that I never thought I could or would; finding so much joy in the midst of the heat, the rain, the language barriers, cultural differences, medical emergencies, and a host of other situations that I would have shuttered to face in my imagination. But, like riding on the back of the motorbike, sometimes you just have to hang on, trust that the driver knows what he's doing and enjoy the ride.
Sir Winston Churchill said, "Success is not final, Failure not fatal. It is the courage to continue that really counts."
May the Lord provide the courage you need to continue the journey...and enjoy it as you go!
Grace and peace!
