Training Wheels — Answering The Call - A Redeeming The Time Blog

Training Wheels

By Grant Gaines

What milk is to a newborn baby, training wheels are to a child learning to ride a bike. Just as a baby doesn’t come out of the womb chomping down a tasty filet mignon but rather starts with a simple diet of milk and…milk, a child learning to ride a bike doesn’t start climbing the Alps in Europe as if they were in the Tour de France before starting on flat ground with the ever faithful friend called training wheels.

Training wheels are safe. They keep the rider from falling while allowing them to still enjoy the pleasure of riding on a bike. Of course no loving parent would allow their child to keep training wheels on their bikes for their entire lives. Eventually there comes a day in every bike rider’s life when they must face the fact that while training wheels are easy and comfortable, they hold you back from the full enjoyment of riding a bike.

When that brilliant day finally comes, Dad takes off the training wheels, Mom grabs the camera and a few Band-Aids, and the child straps on his helmet as if he were getting ready to ride a wild bull. At first the process of pedaling, steeling, and balancing is an enormously disheartening task. The child can’t get but a few feet before the father who is jogging behind his son or daughter has to reach out his hand to save his child from a rude introduction to the pavement.

But eventually, as most of us can attest, we finally get it. Our brains finally memorize the motor skills required to successfully ride a bike from point A to point B without any problem at all. And while it would have been much safer, easier, and more comfortable to leave the training wheels on our bikes for our entire lives, can’t we all agree that there is so much more freedom, enjoyment, and reward to riding without the training wheels?

This example of training wheels illustrates God’s view of our lives perfectly. So often we are too easily satisfied with the bare minimum of our comfort zones that God has to take off our “training wheels” to help us to experience the fullness of His will. This is what Deuteronomy 32:11 (NIV) is talking about when it says that God is like an, “…eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft.”

When a mother eagle lays eggs she immediately begins to build a big, fluffy nest filled with all sorts of feathers, straw, and leaves to make the nest the safest and most comfortable place for her chicks as possible. This safe haven is great when the little baby eagles are still dependent on their mother for food and protection but the nest can also become like a prison to these young eagles. It’s not a prison in the sense that the nest ensnares or enslaves the eagles’ movement but rather it is almost too comfortable which makes the young eagles never want to leave.

But thankfully for these young “kings of the sky,” their mother knows when it’s time for them to spread their wings and learn how to fly so she begins to do something that at the time seems very mean and cruel to the young eagles. The mother begins to rip apart the nest by taking out all of the comfortable feathers and leaves that once made up these eagles’ home in order to expose the pointy branches that make up the frame of the nest. No longer is the nest a comfortable home to live in but rather the last place the eagles want to be.

When the eagles eventually can’t stand being in the nest any longer, they take to the sky…only to clumsily plummet violently towards the earth from their high nest until the mother swoops in to save the day by catching her offspring with her talons. The mom will continue to fly with her babies until they get comfortable with the feeling of the wind under their wings and can safely fly on their own.

When the mother starts tearing apart their nest, the young eagles think their mother is crazy. But the real shame would be if the mom never pushed her chicks out of their comfort zone and let these majestic birds waste their lives waddling in a nest like a bunch of chickens.

In the moment it can often seem like God is out to get us when we get fired from work, receive a bad test result from the doctor, or have a rough season at school. But just like a mother eagle does with her babies and just as a loving parent does when they take off the training wheels, all God is doing is shoving us out of our lowly comfort zones so that we can experience the true joy that He desires us to have since He knows we can’t achieve the fullness of that joy while sitting in the comfort of whatever “nest” we naturally run to.

So the next time things get tough in your life, remember that God is just in the process of taking off your training wheels and tearing apart your nest. And just like any good parent or momma eagle would do, the Lord is right next to you and is intently watching you so He can catch you when you begin to lose your balance. He will keep on running beside you until what used to seem so scary and far off is now your new reality. And one day you will be able to look back on that moment just as we do with training wheels and just as matured eagles look back at their time in the nest and realize that while those were safe times, these are the truly satisfying times.

Will you let the Lord take off your training wheels today?

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

– Romans 8:18 (NIV)