Physical sacrifice

You might have seen me post about how physical sacrifice is one of the biggest ways Venture wants to sacrifice during the trip.  God chose his Son to physically sacrifice Himself physically in the hardest, unimaginable ways that no human mind can ever fathom.  Our biking 3,448 miles from Seattle pales in comparison to the price Jesus paid for our sins, but we're doing what we can to use physical sacrifice of sore muscles, aching backs, no showers, and sleepy eyes to focus our attention on the causes we are biking for in Thailand and Burma.

When people we encounter ask what we're doing, generally their first response is "why?!".  This is exactly the reaction we want because it's a wonderful opportunity to share with them our passion for helping with the Venture projects in Southeast Asia.  Our unusual approach to benefiting the world through physical sacrifice hopefully emphasizes just how serious and passionate we are about what we're fighting for.

During my quiet time the other day, I came across this passage in Isaiah.  It's on the "true and false of fasting" which is essentially another form of physical sacrifice.  When you fast, you're hungry.  Obviously.  The point of fasting is to focus the time and attention you usually would on eating to prayer and communion with God.  Instead of looking to physical nourishment such as food for your strength, you look to God for your strength to continue to function and carryout everyday tasks.  On this bike tour we aren't fasting, but we're definitely sacrificing physically by being constantly aware of how sore and tired we are.  We try and use these moments to pray to God for strength to take one more pedal stroke and keep going.  I can't even begin to list the number of times I've been so exhausted on my bike and rounded a corner to see a hill that is really more of a wall and just wanted to quit.  It's in these moments I put my head down, pedal harder, and pray that God somehow gets me to the top of yet another hill.  God has definitely faithful in bringing this far already and Lord knows it is NOT of my own strength.

Anyway, here is the passage I mentioned that talks about fasting/physical sacrifice:
"Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
     you shall cry, and he will say, 'Here I am.'
 If you take away the yoke from your midst,
     the pointing of the finder, and speaking wickedness,
 if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
 then shall your light rise in darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
 And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your
     bones strong;
 and you shall be like a watered garden,
     like a spring of water,
     whose waters do not fail."
    -Isaiah 58:4

The reason I decided to focus on physical sacrifice in this post is because this has been a really trying week for the whole team.  We had our two longest rides of the entire tour back to back Tuesday and Wednesday.  Tuesday was 111 miles with, no joke, a 20% grade hill at the very last mile.  I honestly didn't think I'd make it but I did.  Besides the hill, earlier that day we had a storm hit us and we were all soaking wet ALL DAY.  We voted as a team whether we should shuttle the last 40 miles to our destination to make it to showers in time and the majority voted to keep riding because this was after all physical sacrifice.  We arrived at that church tired, hungry, and nasty but didn't have showers.  The next day we woke up early still smelling badly and headed out to our next destination 110 miles away.  Again, we made it.  God was good and proved His strength through us once again.

Today is a lighter ride into CHICAGO!  I'm so excited.  I'm currently sitting in a Starbucks for early morning quiet time before I hit the road in chaos once again.

Prayers appreciated for everyone!  Especially as we navigate our way out of Milwaukee this morning and through downtown Chicago.  It could be interesting….

Blessings,
Sara