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The Rope

Following my doctor's orders, I try to get out on my mountain bike every day for at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise. Often I find myself riding through various newly built neighborhoods to eventually end up on the west side of Breckinridge Park in the panhandle of east Richardson. There I meet a natural barrier that prevents me from getting to the east side of Breckinridge with its nice pond and good concrete bike loop. The barrier? Rowlett Creek. It's not a huge barrier, but most places it's deep enough to discourage a recreational biker like me from crossing. And in the few places where it becomes shallow enough to wade, there are daunting steep banks on either side.

One day last fall I finally found a spot, camouflaged by the woods, with a nicely sloping incline down to a shallow section which was easily fordable. Only trouble was, the bank on the opposite seemed too steep to climb with my bike. As I stood at the edge of the creek, gazing at the opposite bank I found myself saying to myself-almost as if praying-"if I only had a rope." With a rope I could cross the creek and then haul the bike up the cliff with it. With that thought still coursing through my neurons, I slowly turned around back toward the west and there, not 10 yards from me, was a rope. And not just any rope. It was absolutely perfect: 30 feet long, nylon, and an inch thick. Perfect for pulling bikes up a bank.

Suddenly, the pulse monitor that I routinely wear to measure my heart rate began to skyrocket. "It was a miracle," I thought, half believing it. I'm certain there was no rope here before, but now here it is. "Ask and you shall receive," quickly surfaced to my consciousness. But surely, this is too trivial to be a real answer to a "half prayer." And what's more, with the "prayer" answered, I will be "obligated" to scale up that steep bank which now appeared to be twice the height that it was only seconds before. Elated at the appearance of the rope, and overwhelmed that I would now have to use it to do something really hard, I began my fording of the creek.

To make a very long story short, let me just say that the task turned out to be far more difficult than I thought. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't pull the bike up the bank. It kept getting caught on roots and bushes. So I pursued another course: tossing the rope over an overhanging tree branch to use it as a hoist. Do you know how hard it is to throw a 30 foot nylon rope over a branch that's 10 feet off the ground? For twenty minutes I tossed and tossed, inventing a whole new approach (for me) of coiling and hurling ropes. At last I succeeded. The rope was secure and I began hauling the bike up, only to have the rope get caught in the V where the branch met the trunk. By using various sinusoidal inputs to the rope, I finally freed it and with much tugging and pushing and with me clinging to the rope itself in one hand and the bike in the other half way up the bank, I finally succeeded in getting the bike to the top. Hooray!

I basked in success. I had accomplished my plan. I took several victory laps around the concrete bike loop on the EAST side of Brekinridge, and then returned to my place of triumph. There I reversed the process, and exercised the much easier process of letting the bike down the bank. I cleverly left the rope in place on the tree, apparently out the gaze of passersby, so I could repeat my conquest. For several days I returned to that special spot and caused my bike to ascend and descend that bank. And then one day I came, and the rope was gone! Vanished from sight with no trace-not even a hint of its prior use. And I returned to my old routines.

What happened to that rope? Was it really a mirage and I dreamed the whole thing. I don't think so. My muscle aches were too real. Perhaps a needier person than myself came along and made use of that rope for some greater purpose than the one I temporarily had. And then it occurred to me that there was a spiritual lesson in the mystery of the rope.

In our spiritual pilgrimages we sometimes meet obstacles that seem too much for us. We utter half-hearted prayers: "Lord, you know I need this, but I don't suppose you'll want to give it to me...." and then proceed to try to figure things out on our own. But then comes the answer: unexpected and perfect for the circumstance. Like the rope, just right for job at hand, but requiring much more from us than we originally thought. In 1999 I prayed to be more patient and loving, and what seemed overwhelming "cliffs" came into my life to test the sincerity of my prayers. Then came the "rope", unexpected and perfect to allow me and my family members to climb the seeming unclimbable cliffs that we faced. That climbing was not easy, but we learned many good lessons from it that made us better climbers for the future. And we are positioned to give away the rope we received to others who are likewise climbing.

As we enter the year 2000, it seems to me Town North has been given a number of ropes. The decade of the 1990's had several cliffs that we had to climb, such as building the new facilities, moving to the new location, adding key staff members and dealing with the loss of others, redesigning our worship format, and providing for the growth in attendance and membership-including our very own baby boom. Through it all the Lord provided just the "ropes" we needed as we prayed for His provision to meet these needs.

Now we need to ask, "how can we give away the ropes we received to help other climbers?" There are a lot of opportunities through the diaconal and outreach ministries of the church. One of immediate importance is those "climbers" who need space to climb-our very own children who have filled up the present educational building and pushed the adult classes out to the "temporary" building. Through the recently announced capital stewardship campaign we can share our personal ropes-the blessings God has given us as his people-to scale the present cliff of limited facilities. Like my cliff-climbing experience, it will be a challenge; but as always we can depend on the Lord to provide just the right rope. He always does.

Other Pop Writings:
Caddo! (5/2002)
Raising Cane (4/2002)
Ask Anything? (3/2002)
The Race (3/2002)
The Hill (3/2002)
A Remembrance (3/2002)
Christmas, 1941 (12/2001)
Endo II (3/2001)
Endo I (10/2000)
The Course (5/2000)
The Rope (1/2000)

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