Contact Points

To begin my Sabbatical my family and I made a trip back to the Midwest. We enjoyed seeing old friends in the Chicago area, and I had the privilege of performing a wedding for a young lady I confirmed, whose parents I had married many years ago. Because of the people and luggage in our rental car, however, I was unable to take my bike along. This meant that if I wanted to train for my Sabbatical Ride from Canada to Mexico I would have to ride a different bike. The bike in the picture is my brother-in-law Tom’s Schwinn Continental II. It’s about 40 years old, has a steel frame and wheels, ten speeds and weighs a ton! It’s a tank. I thought it would be good training for me to ride this bike while I was in the Detroit area—kind of like a batter standing in the batter’s box taking swings with a weight on his bat. Boy was I wrong! What I was reminded of, painfully so, was the importance of “contact points” with the bike. I’ve read over and over how important it is to have the right handle bars, seat and pedals (your key contact points with the bike) if you want to ride long distances comfortably. I brought my pedals with me, but when I tried put them on Tom’s bike I discovered they were a different thread than his, and wouldn’t fit. Therefore, I had to ride in sneakers rather than with my cycling shoes that clip into the pedals. Tom’s handlebars are very small diameter aluminum with unpadded tape wrapped around the upper parts and some dry, hardened pipe insulation shoved over the lower parts. This made for hands that went numb very quickly. Finally, the seat was a very hard, unforgiving lump of vinyl that hammered its way into my backside! After four days and 130 miles of riding I had all I could take! I know if I had ridden any further, I would have developed a saddle sore and would be unable to do my Sabbatical ride at all! Contact points—they are crucial! Our contact points with the Lord are crucial too. The key ones are daily Bible study and prayer. In addition our time spent in worship—singing God’s praises, hearing God’s Word, receiving the Lord’s Supper and offering him our tithes—is a key contact point. If these contact points with God are not as they should be, then our relationship with him is not going to be as it should, just as my relationship with that old Schwinn was not a good one! So keep your contact points with God strong and vital. You will enjoy a loving, joyful relationship with him for all eternity!