Getting to know God is like getting fit

The other day I jumped on my bike to go for a ride around where I live. The golden leaves were starting to blow off the trees and the sun was lower than in summer. As I turned a corner the cold wind blew at my back and the analogy dawned on me: faith, or more accurately, a relationship with God is like cycling. If you have a goal to ride a race or get fit, it takes some discipline to get up early in the morning to train.

Any activity like running, cycling or swimming requires training and effort. It might be cold, wet, windy — but if you really want to improve, you push through the weather and your own laziness and get out on the road. Then, as you get going, your body warms up and you don’t even feel the cold. The hills aren’t so steep as the blood flows to your warm muscles and sometimes you forget that you’re even riding because you’re “in the zone” to go.

A man rides his bicycle through snowfall in St Peter's Square. In his article, Stephen Edwards suggests that building a relationship with God is akin to fitness training.

Growing a relationship with God requires an element of training and self-discipline too. It takes discipline to be quiet and listen to God; it takes discipline to wake up early to talk to God in prayer, or read Scripture—especially when it’s cold and dark outside, or raining.

A relationship with God is like cycling. It often takes some effort to get going in the beginning, but once you’re “in the zone” and riding with the Father in the rhythm of prayer, and you know the security of his warm presence within, then you realise that being on the road isn’t that hard at all. Actually being on the road is pretty fun, challenging and exciting.

Training for cycling or running takes effort, but it’s almost always easier when you’ve got a team holding you accountable or training with you (Prov 27:17). The same is true with a relationship with God—it’s so much easier when you’ve got someone keeping you on the right road.

When we join others, or invite others to join us on the ride of faith, the getting-going is so much easier, and the resistance we face from the world affects us less, because we know that as a team we’re riding towards the same goal (1 Peter 1:9).

When we have the support of a faithful community, we have the accountability to get up and “get prayed up” before we start our day. We can encourage one another to keep riding, and they can cheer us on when our legs hurt and we want to give up (1 Thess 5:11). God wants us to ride with inflated tyres and energetic legs, confident in his love. He’s given us the faith community so that we don’t have to ride alone.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could say with enthusiasm at the end of the road — I got on my bike (rather than sleeping in or pushing it along the road), “I finished the race, I kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7)?

Steven Edwards teaches at a Catholic school in Johannesburg.