Matt's Anthology

One of the kids in our neighborhood rides his bike everyday.  I will call him “Little I”.  He has this cool chopper type bike with a big back tire and a raked front end. It really does look like a chopper motorcycle without the motor. He got the bike out of a bulk trash pile. That means someone else was throwing it away (one man’s trash is another man’s treasure). Anyway the bike is in good shape but it had a rusty chain.  That didn’t seem to bother him and he has been riding it a long time with that rusty chain.  One day while he was out riding I told him I would oil the chain but since I didn’t have access to my oil, I had to borrow some from another neighbor. That is kind of how it works in our neighborhood, if someone needs something, someone else probably has it.   Unfortunately, the oil container I borrowed would not let the oil out and because it wasn’t mine, I could not modify it to make it work. So that day, I could not oil the chain on his bike because I didn’t have access to my oil from my container.

Go forward about two weeks to this weekend. I had been sick and basically stayed in bed for most of the weekend but I did get outside, and there he was riding the bike. He comes right up to me and reminds me that I told him I would oil his chain. So I told him to pull the bike up to the garage and I would take care of it. He pulls up to the garage and instead of just waiting for me, he actually turns the bike over because he knows I have to oil the chain with the bike upside down.  In other words, he didn’t just wait for me to do all of the work, he wanted to participate in his “blessing”.  I walk into the garage, get my oil which flows freely out the container and on to the chain. As I am finishing and rotating the pedals to let the oil get evenly distributed, “Little I” asks “what does the oil do?” I tell him it makes the bike smoother and makes him ride it faster. I flip the bike over and he proceeds to ride away.  Now this is what is amazes me.  He doesn’t know what the oil does or how it works, but he puts his trust in me because he believes I have his best interest at heart.  The faith of a little child.  Jesus said, “if you have the faith of a little child, then you see the kingdom of God”.

As I am talking with my next door neighbor, “Little I” rides by and says, “its smoother”. I smile and continue the conversation. He rides by again and says “I’m faster”.   I laugh and tell my neighbor that I told him the bike would be smoother and he would be able to ride it faster. Now we both laugh.  My neighbor is a Father of 3 children.  Now I felt the bike before and after the oil and there was some difference and the chain was smoother but “Little I” didn’t feel what I felt.  He was only going by what I said.  He was going by what I said because I had told him I would fix it and I did. Because I told him it was smoother, he would be faster and he believed.  That was all the encouragement he needed to ride it faster.  Not only did he believe, he told the other neighborhood kids and they rode the bike by us saying the same thing.  In other words his belief, his trust in what I told him spread to others.

God is a Father you can believe in.  You can trust His word.  God is a God of encouragement, he knows how fast you can go if you believe.  He is not asking you to go by what you feel.  He is saying, you will go faster, it will be smoother.  All you have to do is believe in what He says.  The Great “I AM” is telling you and me today, “Trust Me, I have your best interest at heart”.

Simply because I said so…

~ by MGilstrap on May 23, 2010.

Posted in Biblical Lessons