Keep It Moving

This past Sunday afternoon, my daughters and I ventured out on a bike ride.  It was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining through the wispy clouds with a bright blue sky for a backdrop.  We were having a good time as we rode down bike paths, through parks and around lakes.

We were about 40 minutes into our bike ride when suddenly I looked westward and there was a huge storm cloud moving eastward towards us at a rate of speed that I was not comfortable with.  It was at that moment I realized that we we were going to get caught in a storm.

In an attempt to beat the storm, my daughters and I pedaled as fast as we could toward home.  We were still about 15 to 20 minutes from home when we felt the first raindrops.  "Here it comes", I thought to myself as I tried to keep my composure for the sake of the girls; anyone who knows me knows I don't like strong storms.  

Meanwhile, I'm praying and speaking God's Word back to Him that 'even the winds and waves obey Him' (Matthew 8:27).  And as I'm praying, the skies open up and it begins to downpour heavily. Then the winds pick up.  The rain started to feel like hail due to the rate at which it was falling coupled with the wind speed.  At this point, there was no where to take cover.  I realized that no matter how hard the rain came down, no matter how gusty the winds grew, we had to keep it moving.

In that moment of going through a natural storm, God reminded me that it was a lot like going through a spiritual storm.  No matter how tough the going gets in our lives, we got to keep it moving.  What good does it do us to stop moving part way through a storm?  It does us no good . As a matter of fact, stopping movement part way through a storm can do more harm than good.

Imagine had I told my daughters, 'stop riding...we are just going to stand here and let these torrential rains and winds beat up on us'.  If we had done that, we'd been in the storm longer.  At least as we were moving; we were going through it.  As the storm was moving eastward, we were moving westward.  In other words, we were making progress through the storm.

And spiritually speaking, we must do the same.  With God's help we can make progress through any storm rather than let the storm beat us down.  The important thing is to never stop, never quit and keep it moving.

Oh and yes, my daughters and I made it through the storm (literally). We were even greeted by a double rainbow when the skies cleared !

Be encouraged!