This week my brother Ben and I are trying to cycle from St David’s in Wales right across the widest point of the UK to Lowestoft.
When I dreamed this Grand Challenge up in lockdown it seemed like a fantastic idea and made perfect sense, now as it begins today – none of it makes sense to me.
What’s a CVM Grand Challenge?
Essentially this is all about doing a charity fundraising event for CVM, raise a minimum of £1000 for CVM by doing a challenge that will push you to the limit and be a decent achievement for you personally.
So this is what we are doing, dressed as Batman and Robin we are cycling across the UK pulling a bathtub on wheels to make as much noise about the work of CVM as we can.
This 5 part blog series is all about endurance, challenge and spiritual fitness. Lets go!
Day 2 – Nutrition
When we start to talk about any sort of physical or endurance event, nutrition needs to be high on the programme. The right foods at the right times will keep the body fuelled and working as best as it can. In lots of endurance events, people will get to the stage called the wall (or a different term in cycling) but the point is – your legs turn to jelly and its just a huge effort to finish the course.
I once completed a charity cycle ride in Romania and had terribly underestimated the route and the mountains we would need to climb. After a day of hot sun and desperate pedalling I was completely out of energy, the gas tank was empty, and I was gulping power gel like it was going out of fashion. I crawled into the check point that evening, in last position. It was dark, people had eaten and I was broken for the start of the next day.
When I decided to be a Christian and follow Jesus I didn’t realise that it’s possible to get to a point of spiritual exhaustion too, like the physical wall – we can come against spiritual walls too.
The reason was that I had been motoring along as a ‘Christian’ but neglecting to find the right nutrition that my spiritual life needed. Reading my bible and finding and making time to talk to God.
Imagine you get a fruit seed and instead of planting it in soil, giving it sunlight and water you plant it in a Mars bar, pour coke on it and hide it in a black bag. It’s unlikely that seed will do anything, let alone grow or have much hope of bearing any fruit for you. The new seed needs to be fed and watered properly for it to grow and our spiritual lives are no different.
Get creative with reading your bible, listen to it being read, read it out loud or focus on one book a month with reading plans and resources. Put the worship tunes on, and talk to God – it will make all the difference to your spiritual life that’s desperately wanting to grow.
If anyone else out there can support and cheer these guys on with a donation, please do – it makes a real difference!
