I can’t sleep, I am working nights this week, and should sleep days, but sometimes it just doesn’t take. I meander about the house, then it comes to me, I need to ride. It is 112 degrees or so outside, but hey, I am used to it, I saddle up my bicycle and head out into the heat, headed for my mountain trail. I have my camelback full of water, and a bottle extra, I will be fine.
As I hit the trailhead near my home, I think to myself that it is hotter than usual, but I am comforted by the water on my back, and the fact that I have ridden this trail a hundred times or so in the last six months. I power up the first part, the mountain known as lung buster hill until I reach the saddle and have a choice, go left and be done with the ride soon, or take the four mile uphill trail to my right and tough it out. I go right.
I ride off into the heat that only the sonoran desert gives, giving more than I feel I have, but I stick with it. I am alone, my faithful riding partner at home down the street from where I live. As I near the halfway point, I look down and to my horror see that my bicycle pump is gone, and the whole mindset of my ride changes instantly. I was feeling bold prior to that, but now I have fear. That little bike pump when it was still on my bike was like the spare inner tube I have in my pack, it was a lifeline to safety, and now I am without it. I begin to ride slower, being more careful of the ground I am traveling. When I see a sharp rock, I veer to the side, for fear of puncturing a wheel, I worry about errant cactus pods in the trail, and I no longer ride with gusto
If I get a flat, it doesn’t matter whether I have a spare tube, I have no means to air it up. My water supply is based on a quick trip through the mountains, not on having to walk out. The desert southwest is full of stories of hikers who have gotten into trouble and died from exposure before they could get to help, I am one flat tire from being that guy.
I finish the trail, get back on the road that leads to my home, and finish the ride with no incident. I find my bike pump in the garage where my bike resides, I don’t remember taking it off, but I guess I did.
This is a parable of sorts, based loosely on truth, the ride was real, but I only wondered what it would be like had I lost my pump. Being ADD, it is common for me to lose track of things that are important, like reading the Bible daily, like spending much time in prayer. These things are easy to remember when life is good, when there are no bumps or flat tires. When life gets hectic, when we are forced into working more, spreading ourselves thin and we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed, what suffers?
For me it has been my daily Bible reading, for me it has been the deep time spent in prayer to my Lord and Savior, and for me, they are my spare tire and bike pump that will get me through the desert in life. Without them, I am nothing less than a skeleton under cactus, a victim scattered by the buzzards.
Summers are always tougher for me, for reasons I cannot explain. For some reason, I always seem to get overwhelmed, and the things that are so important to me take the back burner. A very dear friend and brother in Christ was called home this week, and I am dealing with his affairs with his widow, and need to give the eulogy at his memorial. I feel so empty inside, as his loss was unexpected. This is a time when it would have been better if I was steeped in the word, but I had allowed it to take a back burner. This is a time when it would have been better if my prayer life had been better, but it too had taken a back seat to other things in my life. Had I not let them slip back, they would have been the cool waters that soothed me through the long walk in the desert; they may have been the pump that buoyed my tires back to life.
Remember friends, the Bible and its regular reading gives us strength that we need to power through the desert of life. Prayer is the life giving fluid that will refresh us and give us the strength we need to make it back home. If they are not front and center always, then you will one day be stranded in the desert of life.
God Bless-JFT
Blessed Dad's Weblog © 
