Testimony - A little like learning to ride a bike

Have you ever tried to teach a child to ride a bike? Sometimes it seems to the child that they’ll never be able to do it, that it’s just too difficult. Yet as parents we know that if they will listen to our instructions, it will eventually click and they’ll take off and find their balance.
Sometimes they take off and do fine until they realize what they are doing. Fear kicks in and their eyes go big and their feet hit the ground.
Sometimes it’s not about whether we can, but whether we believe we can.
As parents we know that if they will look forward and keep working the pedals they will be just fine, it’s when they look back, when they doubt or when they stop pedaling, that things go badly.
We are Heavenly Father’s daughters. He knows what we are capable of and even when it looks scary and completely impossible to us, sometimes we have to trust that he knows better than us.
When we face trials and when life seems difficult and hard to face. We need to trust him that if we press forward, looking ahead and not back and keep pedaling, we’ll be just fine and things will work out.
What are the things he has told us will help us in our ‘ride’ here? What testimony building things has he asked of us?
He has counseled over and over that we should study the scriptures – not just read but study them and try to learn from them.
He asks us to pray, to share our hearts with him and to listen to the council he has for us.
He wants us to make and keep covenants .
He wants us to repent, not to look back but to look forward with a brightness of hope.
One of our children struggled to learn to ride a bicycle because he wasn’t a fan of fast. And in order to keep a bicycle from toppling over the bike has to be moving somewhat fast. He would pedal and then slow down and when the bike tipped he would look at us as if to say, “See I told you this wouldn’t work!!” Daren would explain to him again that he had to keep pedaling in order to keep the bike up and we would try again. Same result. Sometimes he would get so frustrated that we would have to quit for the day and come back later. The information he needed to ride a bike was there but he wasn’t hearing it. When he finally trusted and kept pedaling he was off and riding a bike, just like his dad told him he would.
Do we ever do this with the Lord? Maybe we pay tithing a few times and then the transmission in the car breaks and we think, ‘I paid tithing, it didn’t work!” We make a half hearted attempt at visiting teaching and sit through someone’s testimony of visiting teaching wondering why ours isn’t as strong? Can you see how it’s like the child who is learning to ride a bike? Our fears sometimes cause us to be half hearted in our attempts or we aren’t fully committed so we want to do the bare minimum on our part and receive the full benefit from the Lord.
Just like our children on their bicycles, He knows what will work for us, but we must trust and be obedient. Do we do those things he asked us or are we letting fear hold us back? Are we giving half hearted effort so we can be right when we think ‘I’ll never make it. I’m not good enough.” Do we want to be right or do we want to be the righteous daughters he says we can be?
At some point we have to learn to trust the Lord and learn that his way is the way to true happiness.
We can begin to trust him and start ourselves on the path home. Of course there’s more to learning to ride a bike than just learning to point the bike forward and pedal. One of our children was so proud of learning and so excited that she could ride without her dad running behind that she came furiously pedaling down the culdesak toward home. But she wasn’t super skilled in braking or steering yet. She ran smack into the back of our van, spread eagle and then kind of slid to the ground.
Just because we’ve gotten on the bike to stay upright pointed straight down the street, doesn’t make us a bike rider. We need to learn to brake (never use just the front brakes!! Remember that council? And did you have to learn it the hard way? Some of us do but hopefully we learn from it and pick our selves up and head off again, never looking back!!) Once we’ve begun out testimony journey, we aren’t done, there’s still more to learn and do.
We need to learn to steer, to slow down around corners, how to shift and when to shift. When I was growing up and riding my 10 speed (anyone else have a 10 speed?) The thought makes me smile! I was so impressed with myself when I got a 10 speed bike, and I learned to shift gears!) Each fall the county would oil and gravel all the roads where we lived. This made biking treacherous for quite awhile afterwards. We had to go a little slower and pay a little better attention. Doesn’t that remind you of Elder Uchtdorf’s talk about slowing down for turbulence? “Therefore, it is good advice to slow down a little, steady the course, and focus on the essentials when experiencing adverse conditions.”
What are some of the gravel or adverse conditions we may face in our lives?
Death, children, job loss, divorce, health issues,
One of the things Pres. Uchtdorf shares is that we focus on the essentials. It’s easy when life gets stressed to lighten our load. It is critical that we don’t lighten it by skipping our personal or family prayers, scripture study, that we don’t take a Sunday off of church to rest. We need our covenants and the spirit most during times of turbulence or gravel. Those are the essential things we need to do to keep moving forward so we don’t tip over.
One of the things I wanted to do when I got a bike because I knew it was a skill of the coolest of the cool, was to learn to ride without hands. To sit up on my 10 speed and cruise down the road. We also loved to ride up the hill north of town and since we could see it was clear for miles we would coast down in the middle of the highway. Wind in our hair and flying!! Of course we didn’t usually try this after they graveled!!
Do we ever try to live the gospel ‘look ma, No hands!” Or do we try to coast along for awhile? The thing about no hands or coasting is that you can never do either one while going up hill.
Think of the words the scriptures use to describe our journey here: What are they?
Strive, diligent, press forward, work, steadfast, seek, study, earnestly, ask, knock
None of these are passive things, they are climbing, moving upward kinds of words. We cannot live the gospel no handed or feeling the wind whip through our hair as we coast along. We have to be moving forward. If life is tough, if things are hard, Pres. Uchtdorf has counseled us to slow down as we make our way through, but he does not counsel us to stop, to coast or to ride without hands. We need to steer our course, we need to keep pressing forward.
How is your ride going? Are you in first, climbing slowly and feeling the burn? Are you on a gradual incline but making steady progress? Have you fallen and you can’t get up? Are you coasting and gaining speed? We need to trust Heavenly Father, he knows his daughters. He understands what will make the journey easier for us and will help us return home. Coasting is fun and thrilling but it always takes us downward.
If we’ve fallen, we must pick ourselves up, make repairs and continue forward. We must focus on the future and not let ourselves be mired down in what’s past. That is what the atonement is for.
If we are in first and barely hanging on, we need to press forward trusting that the Savior is pulling with us, that we are not alone and if we continue to do as he has asked we will get through this. We may need to grab a friend to ‘tandem’ with us for a time. That’s what sisters are for!
If we are coasting it’s time to put on the brakes (the back ones first remember!) To turn ourselves around and begin the climb again, looking forward. Remember, coasting always takes us downward!
I have to tell you that I have felt great urgency as I prepared my talk this week. A cousin that I know and love, who has been an amazing wife and mother, who has made and kept covenants with Heavenly Father and built a Christ centered home, let a few of the basics slip and started to talk to someone who is against the church and this week she walked about from that Christ centered home she and her husband have created. I have felt urgency to study my scriptures more diligently, to pray more earnestly and to share with you sisters that we must be on guard. Heavenly Father isn’t the only one who knows who we are and what we are capable of. Satan is aware as well and he works overtime and daughters of God. He tempts us that coasting is fun and everyone is doing it. He tries to get us to rearrange our priorities so that we are out of balance. Have you ever tried to ride a bike while hauling a large weight? It can only be done if you maintain the perfect balance but if it slips to one side or the other we become out of balance and our forward progress stops as we meet the highway. Satan works hard to get us to give weight to good, but not essential things so that he can get us out of balance. Though worldly offers offer temporary entertainment and excitement, the cost is terrible and high.
Sisters, It is my testimony that Heavenly Father has given us the instructions that will help us succeed, we need to trust him. We need to remember who we are and whose we are. We need to do those things that will qualify us for the companionship of the spirit. Sister Beck has said, ““The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life.” We need that spirit in part because he is the master teacher. He is the voice that whispers as we approach a gravely corner, who cautions as we begin to thrill at our coasting speed, who holds our hand as we pick up the pieces and begin to go forward again.
One of our children didn’t really use training wheels. His dad told him he didn’t need them and he took off riding. He had the easiest time learning because he had the easiest time trusting. But each of our children did learn to ride a bike, in their own way and with the loving patience of their earthly father. Our Heavenly father is just patient with us, and wants to help each of us return home in the way that works best for us.
It is my prayer that these words of seek, diligent, press forward, steadfast, immoveable, will be etched on our hearts, that we will keep pedaling and moving forward and make sure our priorities are in order so that we don’t be come out of balance.
We are his Daughters and he sent us here to succeed and gave us the tools to do so. I love you and I testify that our Savior and our Heavenly Father love you.