Jesus Sent, And So, I Went (And I'm Still Going)

What Did Jesus Do?

Jesus Sent, And So, I Went (And I’m Still Going)

“And he called…and began to send them out.”

                                                                        Mark 6:7

If was just for fun when most of us learned to ride a bicycle.  Kid stuff.  Like learning to jump rope, climb a tree, hit a baseball.  It was kid stuff, we didn’t think all that much about it as we biked, jumped, climbed, and played ball with our friends.  Thank God for kid stuff!  But, if I may exercise some license in borrowing from Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth, there comes a time when most of us give up childish ways.  Bikes sit in the garage unridden.  Jump ropes wind up tying bundles of stuff.  Trees, well they’re pretty enough, but mostly we resent having to rake up their leaves every autumn.  Baseball and most every other game utilizing a ball become something we watch rather than do.  So long, childish ways.

There was an old Schwinn “Ten-Speed” (as we called them with I was a kid) sitting out in our shed, untouched for years.  Until one day last spring I took it down and went for a spin with my daughter and her boyfriend.  None of us had been on a bike for a long-long time.  But by the end of what was an easy seven miles along a very flat greenway, something of the kid in each of us was reawakened.  Kid stuff or not, we discovered all over again how much joy there is to riding a bike.  And so that first little ride was followed by more and longer rides.

Within about a month we amazed ourselves by doing the entire 31 miles of the Virginia Creeper Trail (Yeah, I know most of it is downhill, but the last 12 miles or so are a climb!).  By the end of the summer, well, we were hitting the road for 10-20-and 30 mile rides a couple times a week.  Talk about fun!  But, as much joy as doing kid stuff is when you are no longer a kid, there is something to be said for childish ways making way for more adult callings.

Though I would never have expected it, and who ever really expects it, on one of my rides I thought I heard someone calling.  Actually, not just someone, I believed I hear Him, calling.  While I didn’t fall off the bike, it was startling.  You see, I’ve had a couple of painfully idle, and as far as I can tell, unfruitful years of ministry.  I’d been praying and waiting for a call for way more than 40 days or weeks.  So, when I thought I discerned His voice in my head I was excited!

Pedaling along, just for the fun of it, I heard the Lord (At least I believed and hoped it was the Lord), say “Jim, I am going to send you on your bike.”  Huh?  What kind of a call could be accomplished by doing kid stuff?  Then again, in Christ’s kingdom, uh, a child, shall lead (Isaiah 11:6).  Maybe doing kid stuff is more of the work of the kingdom than most of us who are now adults believe anymore.  So, daring (?) to have the faith of a child, I rode on and asked the Lord to please tell me more.

What followed was either a calling, or a pipedream (Often there is but a very thin line separating the two.), to minister to the least of these, from the saddle of my bike.  Actually, what eventually came into focus was a ministry involving hundreds, thousands hopefully, of children and adults riding bikes for the sake of those who can’t (at least for now).  Let me back up a little here.

Thirty years ago our son suffered a near fatal illness that left him permanently disabled.  Before he had ever ridden even a tricycle it looked like riding a bicycle, and a whole lot of other kid stuff, was going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for our son.  But after some of our family who had discovered the unique potential of riding tandem (What used to be called a bicycle-built-for-two) told us how people with disabilities regularly teamed up with other riders to get rolling, we saved up some money, bought a tandem, fitted our son in the stoker position (the back seat, as it were), and, with me as the captain, headed down the road!  There were lots of the simple little rides around town.  Eventually we even tackled that Virginia Creeper Trail on the tandem, along with such great rides as the Gettysburg battlefield.  It was awesome!

But then, our little son grew up to be bigger than me, and the tandem was just too much for me to control.  And so, once again, our son was either relegated to the curb, or we just skipped riding altogether.  Which brings us back to the bike sitting unused in the shed until last spring.  Now, back to the calling.

You see, our son is just one of thousands and thousands of disabled children and adults faced with special challenges when it comes to doing kid stuff (And adult stuff too, for that matter.).  So, as I rode along talking with the Lord about what he was sending me to do on my bike, the vision of a ministry with the mission of helping folks with special needs get started in the sport of cycling began to develop.  And, when I speak of challenges I don’t merely mean physical ones.  You see, special bicycles, recumbents, tandems, and adapted tricycles are a lot more expensive than the bikes you can simply go and buy at your local “big-box” store.  Already faced with lots of expenses most of us don’t have to deal with, disabled adults, and families with disabled children often don’t have it in their budget to spend a couple of thousand dollars on a bike.

This is where 2 For The Ride (That’s what we’re calling this ministry), comes in.  The idea is to stage a number of charity rides across the country, inviting a hundred and more cyclists on each one to contribute to a fund expressly for the purpose of acquiring and giving away adaptive bikes and cycling equipment to disabled children and adults in their communities.  Pedaling a mile, or ten, or 20, or 100 (There are riders at all levels out there on the road), for a cause already has great appeal to many.  And riding in order to help others enjoy the emotional, physical, social, and spiritual benefits of cycling is ministry in a very Matthew 25 sort of way.

Now, it remains to be seen if this is a ministry that will flourish or wither, we’re just in the process of trying to launch it in 2013.  Our hope is that we might be able to schedule as many as ten rides this year, and raise over $100,000.  And, even before the first group ride, I am planning on a solo ride of about 725 miles to begin to raise money.  Anyway, I believe Jesus is sending, so I’m going to be going.  I hope and pray you may hear the Lord sending you on a ride with us too!