This day was no different. So after our Circle Up I struck out on my bicycle with my Garmin. I turn right, left or go straight whenever my Garmin tells me to do so.
My Garmin is my bike friend and has reliably gotten me to all my destinations for the last 10 years. I have ridden over 10,000 miles with my Garmin. I trust my Garmin. The day I am going to tell you about was no different.
So, Neil, our trip leader, said we would head north out of town. My Garmin told me to do just that. I followed all of the turns my Garmin told me to make without question. I did until I realized that I was riding west instead of east.
I asked myself “Why would Neil the trip leader, have us go west to then go east?”
Our route for the day was to ride from Labelle, FL to Homestead, FL for a total of 88 miles. I had stopped along the way in a small community. It was freezing cold and windy.
It was at this point I realized something was wrong. My Garmin was not communicating to me in the way it normally did and it was making weird noises. I checked my cell phone to look at the map but guess what? No cell reception.
I knew I was off the route and had to somehow figure out how to find the route. I had a route sheet but where was I? I was in the middle of some of Florida’s beautiful landscape filled with fields of vegetables and an assortment of trees. I was on a road that appeared to go for miles. I was 15 miles the wrong direction from my destination.
Rather than panicking I tried to figure out what was going on with my Garmin by turning it on and off and fussing with the settings. When that didn’t seem to fix my Garmin I decided to head back to LaBelle, FL where I started out.
Fortunately I had placed a chalk mark at each of my turns. I could follow the chalk marks like following bread crumbs back to my starting point! It would be 15 miles back to the starting point for a total of 30 additional miles that were not planned on for the day.
Once I returned to LaBelle, I quickly realized two realities. I would need to use my route sheet without the aid of my Garmin. How disappointing! I was also 1.5 hours behind the group. I would never catch up with the group. With these realities I settled into my bike seat accepting I had a long ride for the day; 108 miles instead of the 88!!
In the end it was a challenging ride, character building. I found myself thinking about my relationship with God. Do I always trust God in the same way as i trust my Garmin? This is a challenge I am often faced with.
I have a strong need to be in control. Turning life over to God means letting go and letting God. Lesson learned: Check your Garmin for accuracy before takeoff!! Continue to work on letting go of needing to have the control over everything and let God do more of the heavy lifting!
