Lessons From The Tour: The Long Road Ahead July 26, 2006
Posted by Steve in : Uncategorized, Weblog, Tour De France, Breaking News , trackbackFROM AP --After an arduous 20 stages, Floyd Landis vaulted into the annals of cycling lore with Sunday’s win in the 103rd Tour, crowning a stunning comeback. All but written off after cracking in the final climb last Wednesday, the Phonak team leader managed a stunning rebound on Thursday on the the last mountain stage, pedaling like a madman to move up from 11th to third (only 30 seconds behind the yellow jersey) to put himself back in contention.
“It was the Hail Mary pass,” Floyd Landis said. “To my way of thinking, 11th place was the same as 80th place — I didn’t care, I wanted to win, so I took a risk.” In Saturday’s final time trial, Landis finished third but outpaced race leader Oscar Pereiro of Spain to gain a 59-second advantage and reclaim the race leader’s yellow jersey and win the Tour de France.
I am a Tour de France nut and a Christian on a continuous journey to grow in my relationship with Christ and to glorify him in everything I do. So having spent the good part of three weeks watching with complete fascination at the punishment, tactics and final bursts to win a stage, I sit back and realize there are many lessons one can learn from the Tour de France.
What lessons as Christians can we learn from such a spectacle, such as test of endurance…more than 2,200 miles of pounding pavement?
The first lesson is that there is the long road ahead. Most of the stages of the Tour de France were 100+ miles each day — day after day, up mountains and the pain of the climb, other times descending the mountain with complete exhilaration, then other times long stretches of nothing.
Learning who Jesus is and what He did for us is like getting to the starters booth for the prologue…..but the Christian life is a long road, filled with highs and lows and long dry stretches. Each day we need to crawl off after the long day and get massaged, filled with nourishment (time in the Word), talk to the coach (Prayer) and map out a plan for the next day. We need to pace ourselves and we need to have balance so that we don’t fizzle out early — we need to run the race set before us…..
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?