Rich Dixon is pushing on.

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Our weekend in Cape Girardeau marked the beginning of Week 6.

Closer now to end than beginning, I began to look back for patterns and lessons. In a church service we attended earlier in the ride, the pastor spoke about these words from James:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

A prophetic lesson for Rich’s Ride.

My initial idea was to ride two hundred miles during each of the first seven weeks, leaving only one hundred miles during the final week to reach the fifteen-hundred-mile goal. I also planned to ride a little extra distance during the first few weeks, when I was fresh, to create a cushion…in case I faded toward the end.

Every week, something interfered with our plan to exceed 200 miles. Weather, difficult terrain, equipment issues, last-minute speaking opportunities – something always prevented us from creating that small bit of insurance against future problems.

But we were consistently able to maintain 200-miles-per-week. We didn’t get ahead, but we didn’t fall behind.

We were able to do just enough.

Reminds me of the manna God provided to the Israelites in the desert. They couldn’t collect extra; they got what they needed for the day and learned to trust God’s provision for the next day.

It’s one more lesson from Rich’s Ride. I’m slowly learning to allow each day, each week, to take care of itself, trusting the next day for its own issues and rewards. God provides what I need each day.

 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.

I need to learn how to be content with just enough.

To be continued…