Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

Proverbs 19:21

Last Saturday morning, God woke me up early. Like early, early. I mean 3 am early. I tossed and I turned and my thoughts ran amok like sheep that refused to be counted. I tried to pray, but words wouldn’t come, so finally, at 5 am I just got up and got on my studio bike. As I rode, God used the bike to show me why He’d woken me up so early. I learned something that morning and this morning I’d like to share it with you:

That week, I’d been riding a “beginner” series in California. The trainer only spoke Italian and there were no English subtitles available. When I started the first ride in the series, I had no idea what the plan for riding was because I couldn’t understand my trainer, but I could tell that the preset resistance was too low to give me a good workout no matter what kind of ride it was.

The weather had been so damp and gloomy where I live though that I really wanted to see the California beaches and sunshine and ride somewhere that was cheerier than here, so I joined the series anyway. Normally, when I join a series I know is too easy, I simply adjust the resistance myself based on what the trainer is asking me to do. On this series though, I couldn’t understand any cues from the trainer on the frequency or duration of intervals to allow me to adjust the resistance manually, so I let the SmartAdjust feature on the bike set the resistance for me based on my past performance on similar rides.

When I turned the SmartAdjust on for that first ride, I almost turned it right back off. The SmartAdjust cranked the resistance much higher than the original program and a few clicks higher than I would normally choose for myself. I honestly thought I’d never make it through the first ride, but I did. Every ride was harder than I wanted, but I stuck with them anyway. Five rides later, I felt stronger and more confident in my fitness level.

Had I been able to make informed decisions about the resistance, I could have adjusted it manually, and probably would have backed it down several times per ride, but because I chose to follow the program designed specifically for me based on my past performance, I discovered that I could sustain higher levels of resistance for high intensity intervals and for endurance paces than I believed myself possible of sustaining.

Now, what does that have to do with God’s message and Him waking me up at 3 am on a Saturday?

Sweet friends, how many times are we pulled into the preprogrammed way of doing things?

Finish high school, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, climb the ladder, make the money, buy the things, do life in the traditional manner and logical order, day in and day out, retire, travel, die.

That sounds bleak, but that’s man’s basic pattern of life isn’t it?

Seek ease. Avoid challenge. Do the things. Check the boxes.

But man’s preset program isn’t enough. We want more.

We want more, but we also still want life to be easy, so we try to blaze our own trail within the program parameters; we manually adjust our lives a little here when the hill gets steep, and we may set the resistance a hair higher so we can fly down the other side, but we don’t really change the program much and we don’t challenge ourselves nearly as much as what we are designed to handle. We want more, but we don’t know our full potential and we’re scared of things like pain and sweat and discomfort so we back down when life gets hard and choose easier paths and programs.

Enter the SmartAdjust.

God’s SmartAdjust: His perfect program built based on your past performance and your potential and His knowledge of your destiny and how to get you to reach it. He sets the resistance, maybe higher than you’d like it while you grind the pedals up hill because He knows that’s what makes you stronger. He eases up the resistance and calls for a lower cadence in the recovery minute even though you want to go fast and burn more calories because He knows you need to conserve energy for the endurance burn that’s coming just ahead.

Dear heart, whatever cycling analogy I throw at it, the point is that God has the perfect program for your growth.

Man’s program won’t get you where you want to go. Neither will your own.

God designed that want in your heart for more and He’s the only One that can fill it. His program is the only one that will unlock your full potential and bring you to the amazing destiny He has planned for you. It’s not an easy program. Easy doesn’t grow us. But it is a perfect program and it’s your program. It doesn’t look like anyone else’s and it might not make sense to anyone else. It might not even make sense to you. God’s ways are higher than our ways after all.

But you can trust in this, following God’s program, letting Him set the resistance and the cadence and the duration, will take you where you are destined to go.

His program will fulfill His purpose for you. And Beloved, His purpose for you is good!