Escaping the Routine

            Once again this motorcycle related,  but I do have an hour drive both ways to class and I am alone in the car so it gets me thinking. 

            I drive a scooter and it is different from riding a motorcycle.  I know you are thinking that it is geek ride and yeah that is me.  But it is missing two important controls, and has one in a different place.  On a motorcycle there is a clutch on the left side of the handlebars and a shifter by the left foot peg.  The rear brake is located at the right foot peg.  Unlike a car the front and rear brakes work independently, but are both important to use together when you want to stop.  This is especially important in an emergency stop, if you only use the front breaks in this situation, it is very easy to fly over the handle bars and into traffic. 

            My scooter has no clutch and where the clutch on the motorcycle is on the left side of the handle bars I have my rear break.  And I do not have to shift my scooter; it is more like a three speed automatic.   But last night at class,we were working on emergency stopping, which requires using all four of these controls together. 

            In normally driving situations I have no problems using these controls together to move through the driving courses.  But on emergency stops when I had to rely on my instincts to work the controls, I found I kept trying to stop the motorcycle like my scooter.  I even locked up the breaks once; this is very bad for a motorcycle because if you lose traction it is easy to tip over.  As we did this drill I became more and more frustrated and nervous.  I was falling back to my scooter patterns, because when you drive a motorcycle it is fairly common for people to get in your way and I regularly gain real life experience on my scooter.

            So my thoughts…

Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is —his good, pleasing and perfect will.

            I am a creature of habit and patterns, I have even found myself driving to work on days off, when I am suppose to be going somewhere else.  I get in the car and the autopilot engages and off I go following my routine.   Transformation takes time and remolding, that is the purpose of the motorcycle class you do these frustrating routines over and over again so it to becomes a pattern.

            In the Christian life it is the same thing, many times we want instant change and we can for times change patterns, but then when we are stressed or frustrated we revert to our known way of doing things.   So how do we create new patterns, we follow someone that knows the right pattern.  We watch what and how they do things.  I think this is why Jesus said this,

Luke 9:23-25 (NIV)

 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.  What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

           The reason patterns are hard to break is because we often hold them dear, they meet felt needs.  Changing patterns means that we have to accept loss, in the case of Christianity it may be loss of instant gratification to gain long term blessing.   But the only way to do this is to focus on His pattern and imitate it in our lives. 

Riding in Circles

                In my last blog I noted that I am currently taking a motorcycle riders course.  The class is divided up into two parts the classroom and hands on riding motorcycles.  Since, I last talked about the book side of the class last week, today I will talk about my reflection on the riding portion of class. 

                I was really excited to be part of the riding portion of the class; I love the opportunity to learn by doing.  So last Wednesday I rode for three and half hours.  I think I traveled maybe a mile or two in slow circles.  The class is made up of many different people with different experience levels.  I have had my permit for 3 months if you subtract the winter, and have driven over 1000 miles on my scooter.  Some of the others in the class were sitting on a motorcycle for the first time.  So at times the riding was very slow paced and boring and I didn’t not feel the challenge the way first time riders were challenge. 

We spent the first half of the class learning how to use a clutch.  My first 3 cars were stick and using a clutch is really the same on a bike as a car.  Others in the class had never even driven with a clutch in a car.  For you who have driven stick you realize that it is about getting the feel of the clutch and the friction zone, although challenging at first it over time it begins to feel like second nature.  So we rocked back and forth over and over again to get the feel.  This first half of class was boring, I was not being challenged.  Ever feel like you have already heard it all before?  That was the feeling I was having at this point.

The next part of class we started to weave though cones and practice driving skills. This part of the class was great!  I had opportunity to practice shifting up and down through gears.  I drive a scooter and my scooter does not have gears or a clutch, but for the class we use regular motorcycles.  Most people drove around in first gear.  But this was my opportunity to practice shifting through the gears.  This part of the class flew by, and we were done in no time.  I left feeling confident in my ability to shift a motorcycle.  This was a skill I knew I needed to learn.

As I thought about my experience, I realized that we can trapped in these same kind of situation in life.  And I think this can also play out in the church, we can get stuck in circle of learning and study then what should be life-giving sucks the life from us.  We go from service to service or Bible study to Bible study without first putting in to practice the new things we have learned.  Could it be that what we lack is forward motion?  We have the fuel we just have to get our hearts in gear!

Many times in Church we are tempted to put in the minimum, we do not want to busy up our lives.  I could have done the same thing if I just rode like my peers in class, and stayed in first gear.  But, then the second part of class would have been as disappointing as the first.  When we put in minimum effort we get minimum results and quickly lose interest.   Listen to Paul’s Challenge. 

1 Corinthians 9:25-27 (NIV)

 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.  Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.  No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

                Paul is talking about maximum effort and focusing on purposeful development, “Strict Training” and “not aimless”.  In church do you find yourselves repeating steps over and over again, failing to take the challenges we face whenever we are confronted with God’s Word?  Is the time we spend between Bible studies and sermons time we are training ourselves or are we just coasting?    When we allow God’s word to live in us and work in us, I believe we truly understand what it means to live.  When we follow God’s word we put in extreme effort and see extreme results.  Because knowing God’s word is only important if we do what is say.

James 1:22-25 (NLT)

 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.  For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror.  You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.  But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.

To escape the circle we get caught in we need to:

… Know where you need God’s impact on your lives and make the most of any opportunity you have to hear God’s word. Look in the mirror and get to know yourself and be real about where you need to be changed.  Then like I did in my class take advantage of the time you find yourself in the circle to think through and prepare for the change you need to make.   Then even if you find yourself in the circle, you are prepared to take time to listen to what God is telling YOU. 

… Put ourselves in situation where we can be stretched.  Find opportunities to serve God that are out of the routine.  You know the routine you have been living.  Paul challenges us to train like an athlete.  For the average person this means a change of routine, couch potatoes and athletes have significantly different lifestyles.  Take that step respond to God in your life and see what happens.  James calls the results a blessing! 

Breaking the Chain

I am currently attending a motor cycle rider’s course.  In the first class the instructor explained to us the concept that every accident is avoidable.  What he was saying was this: accidents are really based on a series of links in a chain, you break the chain, you can avoid accidents.  Some links in the chain are within our control, like taking care of yourself,  your equipment, and others we have little or no control over like bad or inattentive drivers.    His point was, if you can take the controllable bad links from the chain it gives you the ability to limit risk.  If you take the time to be in control of the controllable, like being attentive and aware, you can create space between yourself and others.

As I was riding to work today I was thinking that this really applies to all of life.  And in terms of my life it and where I am at, I could really see how this applies to parenting.  As I think back over my recent parenting failures, I think what links were in that Chain.  I was tired, we had issues with inconsistency, and I became angry.  I believe, we my son and I both, walked away frustrated and did not resolve the real issue.

So what are the links that are out of our control?  I believe work related stress can be an obstacle to my parenting success.  Depending on the ages of your children fatigue can be uncontrollable, but as our kids age we have more control over this area.  School issues, many times our children come home from school after a bad day and a conflict happens at home as well.   Our kids can be stressed out as well and as parents this can be outside of our control, and kids do not always have the skills to work past the stress yet.  I even let it get the better of me at times, I have should have lots more practice.

But there are many self care areas that we can choose to have control over.  Money, our personal finances, has a large impact in our home and marriages.  Time, are we giving ourselves enough time to rest? Did I have to stay up that late and watch a movie or should I have said no to that activity?  I realize that I am the worst driver when I am short on time; I bet it impacts our parenting as well.  Are we attentive?  I notice in my home many times large conflicts are the result of small issues that are not dealt with.  After school our children normally go and play with their friends, after homework and before supper.  They have to ask, and I almost always say yes… But, what do I do when they do not ask?  Even if I would have said, “yes”.   At the time it was not a big deal I would have said yes anyway, but then it gets to Saturday morning chores and they run off to go play without asking and now it is a conflict.  Are we being consistent, and giving real consequences?   Being consistent is like giving yourself space when you drive.  And giving real consequences is like taking care of preventive maintenance.  On a good day my bad driving may not matter, until I meet another careless driver.

What we learned in class was that we always are at risk for accidents, as we are always at risk of bad parenting moments.  What are we doing to manage the risks in your life?  When I ride a motor cycle, we were told that just taking care of one of those areas significantly reduces our risk.  What link do we need to learn to manage better in our own lives?  How can you better care for yourself so you can better care for your children?

Luke 6:42 (NIV)

 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.