Pastor John Van Sloten

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I don’t think I’ve felt this relaxed in months.  Slept in and then went for a 60km bike ride west of the city this afternoon.  40km headwinds heading out (2-1/2 hours),  40 km tailwind heading back (45 minutes).  For once I didn’t rush.  Stopped to take a few pics, and smiled a lot.  God really is good on the complimentary colour thing.

Last night I had these repeating nightmares of everything falling apart at church.  Woke up all stressed out and realized that I have no idea how good things are at New Hope right now.  There is an often unseen and uncited goodness that’s keeping things in order. 

Beautiful blue and yellow day for cycling. But I almost bought it three times. First a very angry dog tried to take my achilles out. Then a moron on a motorcycle, passing cars on the shoulder, comes up from behind me (on the shoulder!) at 120km/h and nearly grazes me. And then I, near the end of my 50k ride, make a risky move to cross a street and nearly got clipped by and SUV. Great ride. But if my mother knew… : )

There was a point on my ride back along hwy #8 where the conditions were perfect. I was cycling full tilt at the exact speed of a Chinook tailwind- 50ish km/h. There were no cars around and I could hear the wind whistling through the dried grass in the ditch…

There was something about the speed alignment that made the moment magical. And I must have been in it for 3 or 4 km. It felt great, and I imagined it as analogous to my life. Right now things are just hard work. I need to bear down and finish the final two chapters of this book while continuing to work hard at my day job at the church.

Life right now feels like the 25 kilometers of head wind I endured on the way out this morning – averaging 11km/h. But I’ve learned how to respond in times like this. Head down, slow down, stay within yourself and keep peddling.

I’m very excited to finish this book. I keep getting the sense that God is all over it. In creating the story in the first place. And even in it’s re-writing. Thursday night I fell asleep thinking a chapter was going to be removed from the book. I woke up Friday and told Fran that I thought that needed to happen. She told me to wait on feedback from the publisher. I checked my email an hour later and my editors strongly suggested the removal of that chapter. It was like the blow was being softened. God nudged and pre-convinced me.

I can hardly wait to see where this thing goes.