Bringing God Joy and A Lesson From My Boy

I have always felt being a parent gives me a considerable advantage to understanding God's heart. My understanding increases as I think on the similarities of my feelings and His. This week of vacation held several parallels, but the one that stands out is our bike trip yesterday...

My husband Dale has been planning for this adventure for several months. If his computer is open, there is a tab that says, "Craig's List". Our baby boy Ethan {I know he loves that title} turned 20 this month. We wanted to give him and his friend a trip to Florida. Dale has been working for nearly four months on having all we needed at a good price. Cheap. :) 

He brought our two bikes down in December anticipating me joining him several times during his time in the South, but he wanted the boys to have bikes, and found a pair on Craig's List. Very basic bikes, not like our mountain bikes. At all. 

After a 40 minute drive to the trail head, we unloaded our bikes and were tooling around the truck before heading onto the trail. In his amuse-me boyish manner, Ethan said, "Look Mom, Dad got me a freestyle bike!" To model this, he jumped up with both wheels airborne, and upon landing, his rear wheel instantly disfigured. 

Similar to this photo... 

My immediate mom-response was, "take my bike, I will go find something to do in town." {Gainesville has a plethora of shops!}. Never in a million years would I have thought to try to straighten the wheel, nor did I think he would be able to do it. But that is what he did. Honestly. He somehow "untwisted" it and we proceeded to navigate our way through the mountain-bike trail. Every time we hit a large root, I anticipated his "weak" wheel collapsing. But it never did. Eight miles of bumps, twists, ruts and roots and the bike made it all the way.

How can I express the "wonder" I held in my heart at how enterprising my boy was? {And all the moms are with me on that, I know!} Seeing both of the boys navigate the single-track trail on inferior bikes made a lasting impression on me. They were NOT mountain bikes. They were like the bikes I learned on 'eons' ago and would never have attempted to ride in the meadow much less the mountain. {Not that there are mountains in Florida, but when you are biking up an incline, it feels like a mountain .} 

On our way back home, I was thanking God for this miracle of being able to participate in this adventure, and that I have a son who is not deterred by a mangled bike tire . 

And I got yet another glimpse of His love for our acts prompted by faith. The "press on" attitude and creativity that we use gives Him pleasure. Don't you love that?

Afterward photo...My amusing boy on the left...his amusing friend on the right.  

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6

We can know that God takes pleasure in us when we take steps of faith in our adventure with Him, and not let a "twisted wheel" deter or determine the ground we take.