The Monday Morning Attitude, or spirit if you prefer, is one of those places and moments where we can do more than learn–we can mature! But learning, or as I prefer–maturing, doesn’t just happen automatically. It takes a conscious and dogged determination to choose to learn from it. What’s that saying? If we don’t learn from our mistakes we are destined to repeat them–over and over and over! And the Monday Morning Attitude is a mistake–because it steals from us the joy and wonder of the life God intends and desires for us to experience. So, this morning I thought I would share with you some things I learned on our recent road trip on the trike; since one of my dear friends wants to hear about it. (BTW, this morning I came up with the name for my new bike. My old one was Therapist, and this one is Counselor!)
- Don’t wear black jeans on a hot sunny day! Man, my legs felt like they were cooking on a smoker grill! I remembered an old lesson: the color black draws in heat!
- Watch out for others! It may have been in Amory, Ms., and there was a tractor mowing the sides of the highway. And this idiot decided to pass that tractor on a double yellow line as we were approaching it. Idiot may not sound like a very “Christian” term–but at 66 years old I call it like I see it!
- Stay off the interstates! Not because they are dangerous for a bike. No, it’s because you see so much more of the beauty of God’s creation on the two-lane roads.
- Take the time to talk to other people! On more than one stop, we had people wanting to talk about our bike. Some had questions, and others had stories. Rather than being impatient to get on down the road, we listened and talked. Shook hands and bumped fists! It was great!
- Don’t worry if you miss a turn, enjoy the ride! We missed a turn and saw parts of the countryside that we probably won’t see again. The adventure of not knowing exactly where we were didn’t keep us from enjoying the ride!
- There are some rough roads out there! I mean tooth-rattling, bone jarring roads. But we found out they aren’t everywhere. So we hung on until the roads became smoother. And we saw a lot of the beauty of God’s creation.
- Don’t speed! No, I didn’t get a speeding ticket! Speed limits are for our safety and the safety of others. Besides, we saw some beautiful flowers that otherwise we would have missed.
- Eventually, you will find a road that will take you to a familiar place! Remember us missing a turn (or two, or three)? We found a sign that pointed us to a familiar place. It was from that familiar place we knew how to get back home! So watch for the signs!
What should have been about a 3 or 4 hour drive, turned into an all day adventure! And we loved every mile (long miles) of the journey. We didn’t take a lot of pictures with our phones, but we took a lot of pictures with our minds. Here’s one from the phone:
Adding this picture reminded me of another lesson I learned. It’s hard going against the current, but sometimes you have to go against it to get to where you need to be! We couldn’t help but notice the strong currents on the Mississippi. We watched some tug boats going up stream–and they weren’t going as fast as those going downstream because they were going against the current. But I am confident those tugboats and barges arrived at the destination. By the way, why do they call them “tug” boats when in reality they are “pushing”, not tugging, those barges? We may never know.
But one thing I do know is that when we learn and mature through what we experience and what we see, then we can say, “Good! Lord, it’s Monday! What shall be do together?”
Kingdom Pastor 