Metaphor from a "Monster Bike"

Mid-March in the high 70s inspired the first bike ride of the season; Kevin and Kyria set out on a 10 mile, with Mom, Annika and Sophie pedaling along for moral support. I usually try to pull up the rear, keeping a gage on how all are doing, but for 3 miles, Annika couldn't seem to stay ahead of me and I just couldn't idle slow enough. At the speed of the runners, the pace wasn't challenging, so I wondered at the pained look on poor Anni's face. Surely this kid was in better shape than her mom, yet she just couldn't keep up. At the City Market, our first water stop, I convinced her sister, Sophie, to switch bikes with her, suspicious that her mount was the problem. Annika needed a break.

1/2 a mile later, with Annika happily zipping along, but Sophie lagging sorely behind, a contorted frown swept across her face, I offered to ride the "monster." I imagined some difficulty, since the bike is a bit on the small side for my frame, but I was in for an unexpected amount of excruciating exercise! The next mile felt like pumping my pedals through murky mud up to my knees.

I tried different gears; even on the down-hills, the monster bike wouldn't even coast; it just slowed to a stop. As I sweated and strained, resolving to just hang out with the rhinos at the Zoo till Kev could pick me up with the car, I noticed the front wheel. I'd been working so hard, standing up most of the way, I hadn't noticed the rubber breaks pinching tight against the front tire, rendering regular resistance and a real pain in my posterior.

At the Zoo, Dad made a quick adjustment to the bothersome breaks, releasing the friction. A game of musical bikes, then, returned us all to our appropriate mounts. We were off. Everyone happily rolling along. Oh the difference properly working equipment makes.

During my one mile workout against the breaks, and for the remainder of the pleasant ride after Kevin released them, I reflected on how this experience parallels and illustrates the effects of spiritual oppression in day to day life. What should be fun and easy, the "coasting" aspects of life happenings, like family movie nights or vacation get aways, are endured with a plastic smiles, a manufactured laughs but an invisible ache inside.

The flat stretches of road, which should require little effort and offer pleasant views along the way, ie: going through the day to day necessities of keeping house, preparing meals, sending birthday cards, becomes, instead, a grueling exercise. Focus and concentration are needed to simply put one foot in front of the other, trying to not look any farther ahead than the task immediately at hand, for fear of breaking down. You pray and hope yourself to the end of the day, when you can tell yourself "I've survived! - 16 hours closer to heaven." - THIS depicts the flatlands.

And the most discouraging part of the analogy are the uphill inclines! When one of your children pitches a fit, when a relational challenge with a friend stares you in the face, when a scheduling mistake leaves you scrambling to present an apology as well as a solution, then, you are suddenly exhausted and overwhelmed. Immobile with indecision and a feeling of defeat, even before you begin, the gentle incline or bump in the road looms before you as if it were a 14,000 footer breathing down your neck, declaring "you'll never make it; don't even try."

The monster bike metaphor, fortunately, DOES end with HOPE! Spiritual oppression, like dragging breaks, can be alleviated through prayers of deliverance and inner healing. I've experienced this first hand on many occasions. I've, in an instant, felt suffocating heaviness lift from my shoulders and heart. I've seen a brightening in my vision I can only liken to what I might experience if I had been wearing dark green eyeglasses, tinted with pessimism, for months, and then, on a beautiful spring morning someone took them off. Situations and people all looked new and different, less threatening. Best of all, the fruit of these freeing prayers have remained - tangible, teachable and life-changing.

You may, like me, ask WHY am I - a JESUS-loving, trying-to-live-a-godly-life kinda gal like myself even susceptible to Spiritual Oppression in the first place?? You may have noticed I mentioned experiencing deliverance and inner healing on MANY occasions. Well.... sigh... I guess the humble answer is: I'm flesh, made of dust.

"The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.,"

Psalm 103:6 assures us, "As a father has compassion on his children,

so the LORD has compassion on those who fear HIM.

for HE knows how we are formed, HE remembers that we are dust...."

A friend, with whom I shared my monster bike metaphor, reminded me that this process of repeatedly releasing the "breaks," of oppression, characterizes the life with JESUS. Oppressive thoughts and attitudes, deceptive defenses which don't really defend, and the residue of hurtful experiences and sinful reactions, from our conception to present, ALL work against us - towards bondage. Our enemy, the devil, also finds plenty of fodder for foiling a victorious life with GOD in all this baggage we drag along our bike path.

I highly recommend a full, out-loud reading of Psalm 103, for anyone who's been stirred by this metaphor and subject. Also, Psalm 129 offers hope.

"They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,

but they have NOT gained victory over me.....

the LORD is righteous; HE has cut me free from the cords of the wicked...."

May the blessing of the LORD be on you, readers and may your wheels roll happily along!