Afternoon Delight

Pleasure would not be the same without hardship. Good would not be noticeable without a contrast. Mountain biking and fly fishing would not be the same without work.

Work is the main substance of Training Ground, but the best part of work is getting off for the day with a few hours of sunlight left! I’ll leave the work site with trout on my mind, get my gear together at the cabin, hop on my bike with my fly rod on my back, and head up to the reservoir! It’s a 20 minuet bike ride up to the first reservoir in the mountains behind the cabin.

The hill going up to these reservoirs is long and steep, and we always have to end up walking our bikes up this steep trail, but last Tuesday I told myself I was going to get to the top of this trail without stopping to walk my bike. I set my mind to it and made it! This was physically and mentally one of the hardest things I’ve done since being in Colorado, but I made it and now I could enjoy the rewards of my pain………Trout!

Without the struggle, fly fishing would not be as sweet…I’m learning more and more that the beauty of life comes through anguish. The struggle is God’s way of refining us into who he has made us to be. Embracing the fight that comes with the pain, through the faith that God’s hand is guiding us, is how we grow as men.

The saddest picture is when men fear the agony so much that as soon as the trail begins to get steep and the pedals are hard to turn, they quit by accepting their failure by turning around and going back to the comfort of the cabin…these men will never learn what it takes to fight for their desires. They will never affirm that they have what it takes. These men don’t see the big picture of what God is doing in their lives and they miss the glory that He has in store for them at the top of the mountain, so they just accept defeat with a careless heart and never challenge themselves again because they don’t want to experience the anguish again.

This becomes a life wasted and a generation lost…

God has everything to offer if only we will follow…he will take us up some steep and slippery slopes, but what he offers at the top is a world and life of strength, mystery, and beauty.