Two Wheeled Tiny Terror

My friend Jesse came by a while back cackling uncontrollably. “You’ve got to see this,” he said smiling broadly. Following him outside, he stood beside a little, motorized two-wheeler. “It’s called a ‘pocket bike,’” he said. This…thing looked like someone had ridden a motorcycle in the rain and it shrank underneath him. It’s small, no, tiny in size, but the weird thing is that it’s comparable in proportion to the size of a larger bike.

Jesse cranked the motor (with a pull cord), and the engine whined to life with all the fury of a standard, gas-powered weed trimmer. The shocking moment came when he sat down on this pint-sized wonder, revved it up, and shot across the parking lot with a speed that seemed impossible for something barely one foot tall. After the onlookers present had a chance to ride, my turn came. The first thing that someone my height notices when sitting on this thing is that your knees are nearly at the level of your shoulders; you are practically in the fetal position. Gunning the throttle, I took it for a couple of laps. At some point in this surreal experience, I thought I would see what it would do in the straightaway. This thing, which I later discovered has a maximum rider capacity of 300 lbs. and a top speed of 35 mph, easily sped along the pavement. It was right about then that I thought, “The pavement is really close to me right now. And if I crash on this thing and get visibly injured, or worse, have to be taken to the hospital it is going to be super-embarrassing explaining this to people…”

“So, what happened to you Dustin?”
“Motorcycle accident.”
“What kind?”
“Oh, you know, just a motorcycle…two wheels and all.”
“What, was it a Harley or something like that?”
“No, uh, it was…a little smaller than that.”
“So what exactly caused the accident?”
“It was either the little piece of gravel I hit, or I ran over my own shoestring...maybe both.”

The size of the bike didn’t match what you would think its power, speed and overall performance would be. It was a small package, but was a “big” thing. Thinking about it later, it seemed to me that it is a lot like faith.

Jesus told His disciples, “I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matt. 17:20). A tiny amount of faith, even faith the size of a mustard seed, has enormous power. Why? Because that small sliver of sold-out, resolute belief is in an infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing God. Again, God is the focus of faith, not our faith itself.

There’s an old saying that goes like this: “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.”

Maybe it’s time to say something similar, yet positive, for faith: “Faith will take you places you didn’t plan to go, to do things you wouldn’t plan to do, for results that could come only from God.”

Like that little pocket bike, when you fully invest even a small amount of faith in Almighty God, you had better hang on for the ride.

Dustin C. George
Minister to Single Adults
www.sevierheights.org