by Rick Ashlock

“A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a lot of ignorance is just as bad.”

Bob Edwards (1947- ).

My family lived in Stillwater, Oklahoma, during the mid seventies while my father worked on his PhD at Oklahoma State University. One of my favorite things about our time in Oklahoma was that we were very close to many of my mother’s relatives. Mom was the baby of seven children, five of whom lived in Oklahoma when we were there, so there were a large number of aunts, uncles, and cousins within a few hours’ drive.

In fact, some of my cousins lived in Stillwater because they were attending OSU as undergraduate students and they would come over to our house from time to time so their Aunt Bonnie could cook dinner for them.

One day when I was about six or seven years old, my cousin Robert, who was a freshman that year, rode his new ten-speed bicycle from his off-campus apartment to our house. While everyone else was inside visiting, I went outside to marvel at this technological wonder. I had become quite proficient at riding my own little bike but I stared in wonder at this huge bike with it’s strange handlebars, gear shifters, and seat that was higher than my head.

We were very blessed at our house to live at the base of the only hill in Stillwater. However, the hill yearned to be as flat as all of the other land around it so our yard had a concrete retaining wall about three feet high to help keep the hill intact.

One of the more prominent characteristics of my childhood personality was the desire to do things the older kids were doing. Seeing Robert effortlessly glide into our front yard had given me an irresistible desire to show everyone I could ride a ten-speed as well as he could. With some difficulty, I managed to push his bicycle alongside the retaining wall, raise the kick-stand, and lean the bike against the wall. I then climbed onto the wall, made sure the bike’s gear shifters were both pointing straight up, hopped on the seat and pushed with my right foot on the only pedal I could reach with all of my might.

I made several noteworthy discoveries at that precise moment. The first was when you are trying to get a ten-speed bike moving, you do not want it to be in the tenth gear. The second was that it is very difficult to ride a bike on which you can not reach both pedals at the same time. The third, and perhaps most important, was that when you push as hard as you can with your right foot and the bike just barely moves, you will fall to your left, which in this case was towards the concrete retaining wall.

My fall had, of course, damaged the paint on Robert’s bike and I knew that the spanking which was my immediate destiny would be severe. My reaction to this knowledge was, not surprisingly, to get mad. I was mad at the bike for not moving. I was mad at the wall for damaging the bike. Primarily, I was mad at myself for having failed so miserably. In the grip of my shame and rage, I stormed into our house and defiantly said to my parents, “I just wanted to prove I could ride a ten-speed!”

I never envisioned a trip to the emergency room would be the result of facing the music. I shouldn’t have been surprised as I had often visited the emergency room during our relatively brief time in Stillwater. The first time, I had pulled an entire percolator full of hot coffee on to my arm. The second time, my younger brother had accidently hit me in the eye with a putter while I was trying to show him how to putt at the miniature golf course. The third time, I had a strep infection and I was vomiting blood as my father carried me into the section of the ER they now kept reserved for me. On that occasion, I got to stay for a few days and watch, for the first time in my life, college football on a color television set. Despite that temporary moment of bliss, I had developed a strong disliking for the hospital and the horrible food it served.

My last visit, however, was a mixed blessing in that it got me out of a spanking that I definitely had coming. I guess the sight of me standing there with blood running down my face from the gash in my scalp caused by hitting the edge of the retaining wall during my fall motivated my parents to take me to the hospital rather than my bedroom. I was so full of anger that I didn’t even know I was injured, but it was rather obvious to everyone else.

In many ways, living the Christian life is like riding a bicycle. Most beginners need the spiritual equivalent of training wheels to stay upright. We need more experienced and hopefully more knowledgeable Christians to hold us up as we gain the basic ability to move down the path of life without falling over every few feet. However, we quickly get to the point of being able to handle the normal aspects of life without too much help. Certainly, there will be a few scraped knees and elbows occasionally but we can generally get where we need to go.

Yet, there will always be certain stages of development and certain obstacles that we face that will require a certain amount of maturity and growth before they can be overcome. Just as a seven year old boy will probably not be able to ride a bicycle designed for a grown man, spiritually immature people will not be able to fully comprehend certain finer points of scripture or cope well with intensely challenging events in life.

When we face these new challenges, it is important not to be so scared of them that we avoid them altogether. It is even more important that we do not try to overcome them without the proper preparation and support. Most importantly, when we do fall spiritually, we should get back up and put the time and effort necessary into growing to a point that we can, with God’s help, remain faithful regardless of the challenges we encounter.

As you go through your Christian life, you will encounter other Christians at all different levels of maturity, which may or may not correspond directly with the length of time they have been Christians. When you see someone struggling, give them the support they need. When you are struggling, look to them for support. We need each other to get through this life and reach our ultimate destination.