Two of my girls are into a new exercise place that has them super enthused.  From the minute you hit the door, the mega-watt staff have you convinced that this is the ticket to ride in terms of fun, and that every dream you have ever had of yourself rocking a hardbody happens there.  Even, I think, sweat comes in designer glistening shades.  What could go wrong?

Being of open mind and happy to engage in anything that might be a bonding experience with my kids, I was up to give it a go when they excitedly invited me to come for a free spin class.  

Now, I consider myself in pretty good shape having given birth to four, and now well on the other side of forty.  I’ve had a stint or two with Karate (yellow belt, thank you very much) and I’ve been known to walk/jog a mean treadmill in my day.  When I was a kid, I rode my bike three and a half miles to school with a thirty pound book bag and a trombone strapped to my rack.  No ten mile treks in the snow in Southern California, but - hey, toss in the Santa Ana winds and you’ve got a good challenge most days.

Still, nothing could prepare me for this class.

I should have known by the way the twenty-somethings all too confidently took to their assigned bikes, that I was in trouble.  The half-pint instructor started rapping how we were all “one with the pedals” and how she proclaimed “You can do it!”  (I wasn’t about to have her add “except for the middle-aged woman in the back.”)  Then came the music — loud, thumping rhythms with words that rhyme with “trucking” and “stick” — and that all too enthusiastic “feel it as you bring up your RPMs” to something short of inducing cardiac arrhythmia. 

Did I mention that this class was forty five minutes?  

I bet you are wondering — Okay, what’s the lesson here?  Besides giving my unashamed, wobbly-legged assessment that spin class is not for me no matter how enticing it looks on the brochure, I have to say that it did get me thinking.  All that effort, all that pedaling, all that sweat…. And we all got off our bikes in the same spot we started.  We didn’t move an inch.  We spinned our way to nowhere.

It’s kind of how life feels sometimes.  I mean, you work it, putting your all into doing what you think is good for you.  You convince yourself that it will even be fun.  You have folks chiding you, rapping in the soundtrack of how, by just investing in what they do, you will have instant fitness, beauty, happiness, wealth….even love. The world is full of them.  There are short cuts and fast tracks to everything it seems.  

Don’t get me wrong.  I am all for new and entertaining ways for people to find their groove, to exercise, to get into shape — anything that gets us to move from our techno-ready postures and remote control lives. It’s great.

I just know that God is a seed and harvest kind of God.  What am I saying? I’m saying that we can’t spin our way to happiness and fulfillment.  I think that in order to get to what we want, need, desire, and cherish, we need to be disciplined in knowing that things planted take time to germinate.  We want the bells and whistles and the beat.  God wants us to be thoughtful in little things that, when put together over time, cause us to grow and stretch.  These are in the steps we take in our faithfulness, our honesty, our reverence for all that He has given us to work with.  It’s in doing our daily walk with integrity and character and faith.

The world promises us quick fixes and sunshine and moonbeams if we follow it.  If we only live for the moment, drink more, hang with the right crowd… God is not invited in, and people spin and spin and never get anywhere.

Providence is gained by working out our life in faith, not just peddling fast.

I am, of course, proud of my girls.  They are excelling in this new exercise and I am happy for them.  I’ve just lived long enough to know that such things come and go.  For now, they are rocking the spin class… But they do the daily things too, that make them beautiful and thoughtful and amazing.  They are already fearfully and wonderfully made.

As for me, I’ll be riding into the sunset the old fashioned way— on my own two feet.  And I’m just fine with that. 

Somehow, I know that with God as my instructor, I’ll end up somewhere different than where I am right now. 

And someday, when I get to my final destination, God will tell me “I knew you could do it.”  To which I will say, “You know what God?  It’s been quite a ride.”