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Well, this is my first “non-ride” blog, although what I’m going to share stems from lessons I learned while on my journey. I do appreciate all those who stayed on top of the blog during the trip and offered comments to the posts. It felt like many of you were riding along with me.

I hope you stick around. I will continue to use this blog to share the many experiences of my personal journey. Some posts will be focuses strictly on riding. Others will be deeply spiritual in nature. Many will be a combination of the two. I’ll even throw in the occasional geek post for the Mac-Addict in me.

I’ve often said that bikers are some of the most spiritual people I know. After all, as you ride along an open highway, enjoying all the beauty of nature around you, it’s difficult to not feel a connection to God. At least that’s been my experience.

Since I’ve come home from my trip, I have begun teaching a leadership course one night a week. I also attended a gathering of National leaders for the Ride For Dad – an organization which raises money for prostrate cancer research. This year, their combined efforts brought in $1.6 Million dollars. Impressive. Last night, they invited me to attend a dinner, say a few words, and pray a blessing. It was an honour to be with them.

Then, this morning, I gathered with approximately 60 men for breakfast. I was asked to speak to them, and decided to share the following talk about being still. The notes are a little rough, and as I usually do when I speak, I strayed off the page quite a bit, but you’ll get the gist of the talk. I hope you enjoy.

Be Still

I’ve just come home from a 25 day, 13000 km road trip across the U.S. I left Ottawa on Sept. 15, and travelled Southwest to San Diego, CA. From there, I rode North to San Francisco, and then started Southeast through Yosemite National Park, Death Valley, Vegas, into Arizona, through Roswell, New Mexico, then straight East until it was time to turn left and head North back to Ottawa. It was an incredible trip, and I experienced things like the Rockies, the sunset at the Grand Canyon, afternoon heat in the Mojave Desert, fog on the Pacific Coast Highway, isolation in Death Valley, standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, being abducted by aliens in Roswell, New Mexico, just to name a few!

It was a short time before I arrived in Roswell, that I went through the town of Lincoln, New Mexico. The most famous resident of the town was a man born Henry McCarty. Now, most of you likely don’t know that name. However, you might know the name he usually went by, William H. Bonney. If not, you certainly know one of his other alias: Billy the Kid.

The facts about Billy the Kid’s life are somewhat less exciting than the legend he became after Sheriff Pat Garrett wrote the book The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, but that didn’t stop me from drifting back 120 years in my mind to when Billy the Kid roamed the country side that I was now riding through.

I imagined Billy and his gang of Regulators looking down from one of the cliffs I was now riding past. My motorcycle became a steel horse, and I was suddenly a cowboy.

Of course, that all changed when I arrived upon the next city, Roswell, New Mexico, which is famous for a different reason!

Let’s face it, most of us, if not now, then at some point in our lives, dreamed about being a cowboy. We all played the game, and imagined life on the range, sitting around a campfire with our gang, chewing on straw, talking about robbing banks and trains.

But then life gets in the way. The busyness, the demands, the responsibilities all take us away from a simpler time.

A number of times on this road trip a certain verse from the Bible popped into my head. Often, it would be there as I enjoyed a solitary portion of road. It was there as I went through the Mojave Desert. It was there as I stood overlooking a portion of Yosemite Park that had been burned during a “Prescribed Fire” – acres of nothing but black, burnt trees. It was there when I climbed off my bike in Death Valley and looked around at miles and miles of nothing but rock and sun.

The verse that kept popping into my head?
Be still and know that I am God.

Be still. Know God.

One night I pulled out my Bible to look up that verse. I wanted to see it’s context. Was there something specific that we were to be still from?

The passage is taken from Psalm 46. This is the entire chapter:

God is our refuge and strength,
always ready to help in times of trouble.
² So we will not fear when earthquakes come
and the mountains crumble into the sea.
³ Let the oceans roar and foam.
Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!
⁴ A river brings joy to the city of our God,
the sacred home of the Most High.
⁵ God dwells in that city; it cannot be destroyed.
From the very break of day, God will protect it.
⁶ The nations are in chaos,
and their kingdoms crumble!
God’s voice thunders,
and the earth melts!
⁷ The Lord of Heaven’s Armies is here among us;
the God of Israel is our fortress.

⁸ Come, see the glorious works of the Lord:
See how he brings destruction upon the world.
⁹ He causes wars to end throughout the earth.
He breaks the bow and snaps the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.

¹⁰ “Be still, and know that I am God!
I will be honored by every nation.
I will be honored throughout the world.”

¹¹ The Lord of Heaven’s Armies is here among us;
the God of Israel is our fortress.

To be honest, at first I was a little disappointed at the context. I had been hoping for something more … relevant. Perhaps an incredible description of nature, or God’s awesomeness, and then, Be still and know that I am God!

But then it hit me. This chapter is talking about life. It’s really speaking about the chaos that often happens all around us. When we look around at our world, we find crisis after crisis.
When we zero in closer to home, we also often find lives that seem to be in constant crisis mode. Some of you know what I’m talking about here. It seems like we are always going, always doing, always working. It never stops. We never stop.

I never stop.

So much came out of this road trip that I plan on sharing with my church when I am back. God spoke to me about many things that need to happen within the structure of Bikers’ Church.

But at the top of the list was something that God challenged me about … me.

I need to learn how to be still. And know God.

Here’s what I’ve learned: no one will do it for you.

Men, at some point, we need to strip off something so that we can find the time and place to be still.

You see, God wants you to know him. It is in knowing God that everything else we do falls into the right place. We get perspective on our family, our work, our play. Everything.

But it begins with knowing God.

But I don’t have time to be still. Find time. You found time to be here this morning, find time to be still.

Over those 25 days, I was constantly amazed at the awesomeness of God. It is impossible to not be blown away with God when you see some of the things I saw on this trip.

But, the most incredible moments of discovering God didn’t come as I watched the sun set over the Grand Canyon. Those moments came as I was being still. When I stopped everything else. And I just took time to know him.

It’s time to be still.