Faith Learned To Ride Her Bike (Picture included)

Yesterday was awesome. My little angel Faith took the plunge and was riding her bike without training wheels. It was awesome.

It was a beautiful day yesterday in Seattle. Probably about 75 degrees. We were out in the front of the house watching the kids play, and I was watching Faith on her scooter, and noticed that she was riding it with great balance. I asked her if she wanted to ride her bike without training wheels today, and to my surprise, she said yes!

I'm in the garage, cranking on the bolts that kept the wheels on, and Faith starts talking to me. "Daddy, I can try it today" and "I think today I can do it" and "Its going to be hard, but I can do it". She is so positive!

Out on the street she gets on the bike, I'm holding the seat running behind her and off she goes! She got it right away! Sure, it was bit wobbly, but off she went, up and down the street riding her bike. It was awesome. I was so proud of her.

Its hard to try something new. It takes a lot of courage when you've seen others fail, or get hurt. But the feeling you get when you get out there and start doing it, it is awesome. Like Faith, it makes your confidence soar.

The bike analogies here are ample-

If you don't know how to do something on your own, maybe you're keeping the training wheels on too long and you just need to take them off get going.

You can't be afraid to do something even though you may get hurt in the process.

Sooner or later you need to try or you'll never know.

Think of the bike as your life with God, and training wheels as our need to be in 'control' and feel 'safe'. At some point, you need to take off your training wheels (perceived control) and allow faith (not Faith) to keep you from falling over.

God has created us all with the innate ability of balance, but if we don't use it, we'll never know what it feels like to ride a bike.

Faith is the same way- we have to use it to experience the fullness of it in our lives. We can stay in control, or let go and give it over to faith.

Take off the training wheels
matt