One of my favorite pastimes is destroying exercise bikes.  During a period of 4 years, I went through seven exercise bikes.  I finally got smart and purchased one with a service agreement, so now, I just get lots of visits from the Sears repairmen.  They’ve taken to naming my exercise bike, names which I can’t repeat here on the blog (young eyes might be reading this).

Yesterday, my repairman visited our home, once again. The bike’s belt was offering more resistance than usual, and it was also spewing little bits of black rubber all around my living room.  Not a good sign. 

But the funny thing is, I’ve been putting up with this for weeks.  Sure, my formerly white carpet was growing black with chunks of bike belt.  Sure, I could barely move the pedals.  But I really didn’t want to take the time to make yet another call to Mr. Friendly Repairman.

I have no excuse.  The repairs are free.  They’re covered. The repairman is a nice gentleman who takes very little time to disassemble my dilapidated exercise machine and rejuvenate it. 

I’m just too lazy to make the call.  I can’t sacrifice those few minutes of inconvenience for the sake of an overall better exercise experience.

This sounds vaguely familiar. 

I mess up my life so that nothing is going very smoothly, but stubbornly, I’m still chugging along.  Instead of crying out to God, who’s just waiting to come and fix the problem, I keep going, in the same, broken fashion.  I don’t think about how much better life would be if I would just stop for one moment and ask for help. 

I’ve got the best protection plan around.  And I rarely use it.  It’s called Jesus’ sacrifice, and he’s purchased all my brokenness, with the promise to make me shiny and new again.  All I have to do is ask. 

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).