Life is like a motorcycle

There are all sizes, shapes; colors and what have you with motorcycles these days. Yet, they all have something in common, we get on them at the beginning of our journey and we get off at the end and in between it is all a matter of balance. Just like we come into this world head first and go out feet first; in between, it is all a matter of balance.

You might justify your ride by saying it keeps the mileage off your car, and that’s important but not that important in the rain and cold. You might attempt to make an environmental or economic case for riding but the reality is if it wasn’t fun you wouldn’t be doing it. Catching the bus is a lot more economical and better for the environment and I’m pretty sure if you checked with any motorcycle enthusiast there won’t be a bus pass amongst you.

This really has nothing to do with this writing except it refers to motorcycles. This guy had a shirt on the other day with a motorcycle on the front but written on the back it said, “If you can read this…..my wife has fallen off the bike…”!

There is something about the wind and sun and the freedom on a bike that makes you want to grin when you crank the throttle. Bottom line is riding a motorcycle is fun. Life is supposed to be fun; I know that through the years there have been philosophers and theologians who have disagreed with that premise. Their philosophy is basically “Life is hard and then you die.”

We live in a world of beauty, we have the capacity to love and be loved, and we can make things of beauty and things to make life easier. God is not some sadistic entity who created mankind just so he could watch us be miserable. The winner in the long run is not the person who gets the most years in their life but the person who gets the most life in their years.

Have you ever done something fun that after a while wasn’t?  Like riding your motorcycle and it really starts to rain….you know that stinging rain; or it’s so cold that the rattle isn’t coming from your bike but your teeth; or there were so many bugs on your visor that you had to stop and clean them off and maybe you rode so long your butt wasn’t going to let you forget it?

The reality is that life is like that, it is supposed to be fun but sometimes it isn’t. There are times when life is hard, its cold, your butt is sore and the visor on your helmet is covered in bugs. And that is life. We don’t always place first, we don’t always have a job we love and we don’t always marvel at the beauty of the day.

There are times that you are fighting with your spouse, the kids are giving you a hard time and your boss is a jerk. Sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning and face life, but it will get better. Every mountain has a top, every storm has an end, and every night has a dawn.

King David who wrote most of the Psalms in the Bible went through dark times, when his friends had deserted him and his former mentor was trying to kill him, and you thought you were having a bad day, but he wrote:

Psalm 30:5 Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.

Like the motorcyclist, we must maintain balance in our lives as Christians. Balance your life now because the life of Jesus is now in you through the power of the Holy Spirit. If the earth ever got out of balance it would spin chaotically into space destroying life as we know it. The same is true of your life. Jesus Christ needs to be at the center of your life, and all other things need to come from your relationship with him if there is to be balance in your life.

Paul wrote (not me the other Paul): “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

Take a lesson from the motorcyclist…they know a lot about staying in balance.