Today we went on a four hour bike tour through the northern parts of Holland. Thankfully, we were riding e-bikes so we had a little help. It was still a lot of pedaling though and I will surely be sore tomorrow.

Five Americans being led by an English guy who’s been living in Amsterdam for the past 20 years. His name was Simon, so it felt a little bit like playing the childhood game of Simon says. I have bunches of stories I want to capture before I forget, but am starting with just one thought before heading to bed.

In recent weeks I’ve been wrestling with a statement a friend shared. “The Bible isn’t meant to be a self help book.” While I know that to be true, I’ve slipped into treating it as such. I’ve been searching for answers instead of the One who is the answer. I’ve been struggling to do things in my own strength - follow the rules and the right outcome will follow. There’s a lot to unpack here, but for just a moment I had an image of the e-bike. And the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s not the best analogy, but maybe enough to challenge my thinking in some ways. The e-bike was powering my ride today. Yes, I still pedaled and had choices to make. I had to steer and be attentive. But without it, I would have never made it nearly as far on our ride and would have missed a lot of great sights.

I’ve been trying to muscle my way through some hard things lately. I’ve been relying on myself (my understanding, my effort, etc) in too many ways. And it’s exhausting, to be honest. What if I surrendered some of that, got out of the way, and let the Holy Spirit do the heavy lifting? It sounds like a much better ride, right?

I’ll be thinking about this more in the days to come, in the meantime, I’m enjoying the views.