Good News.

Hey everyone, glad you're here to read this. I'm not kidding when I say this is the most important thing you'll ever hear from me.

That being said, I'll get started. (Please bear with me, as this will be rather lengthy.)

I had just pulled out of the Shell gas station in Hawthorne and was rapidly accelerating to highway speeds. I had left my dad behind (upon his request,) because his engine was having some problems and he was waiting for a trailer to come so he could load his bike up and head back to Reno. It had been raining on and off the entire day, we had been told, and so the road was slick with fresh rainwater. I had a white Jeep to my right as I reached about 75 miles an hour. Then something happened for the first (and I sincerely hope the last,) time - I lost control of my 2003 Triumph Speedmaster motorcycle.

You see, motorcycle engines are a little fickle at times. And after standing around for about an hour and a half in the 43 degree rain in Hawthorne, the engine becomes thoroughly cooled off. This means that it takes a substantial amount of warming up before it's fully ready to be ridden. But I was cold from the aforementioned standing around, and more than ready to get home after a week away in Mexico, so I went for it.

As I reached 75mph, I went to shift into fifth gear. This means I pulled the clutch, meaning that for a brief instant, the engine was idling. And since it still wasn't warmed up enough, it died as I completed the shift into fifth. Since the engine was in gear but not running, the tire was locked in place. Usually, it would have been overcome with friction from the road and done what's called a "rolling start." But the roads were slippery from the day long rain, so the rear tire stayed still as the bike continued to move.

I didn't notice anything at first besides the loss of power, but then the rear of the bike slid to my left, fishtailing. I immediately went into panic mode and threw down my feet to gain stability - they began to slide as well. I leaned wildly to my right and the bike followed, correcting itself only momentarily before slipping off to my right, again in a fishtail. As I mentioned before, I had lost control completely, travelling at 75mph down the highway. One thought smashed through the haze of panic in my mind: I need to get the back tire spinning again. The back tire was swerving left to right as I impulsively grabbed for the clutch to take it out of gear. It worked. The tire began spinning once again, returning stability to the bike. With the engine still dead, I coasted to the shoulder and stopped. I had some think time.

I was shaking from the adrenaline as I sat there, cars whizzing past on my left. A million thoughts sped through my mind. The most prominent was the little physics lesson we had been taught in my motorcycle training class. Our instructor had told us all about tires locking up; if the front tire locked up, you had to keep it pointed the way you were heading and get it spinning again, no harm done. If the back tire locked up, you had to be really careful to line it up with the front tire before starting it spinning again, because if it started going when pointed another direction, the bike would rapidly correct itself and you'd be more than likely thrown off.

How? I thought, how did I manage to pull the clutch, in a blind panic, at the exact right time so as not to be chucked from the bike? Luck? Chance? I don't accept those for a second. Luck and chance don't account for anything. I can tell you as surely as I am still breathing right now, God was with me in those few death-defying moments on the highway.

But you know what? That's not the point of this blog. God saving my life physically isn't the reason I'm sitting, still cold and tired and dirty, having not taken a shower or eaten after my long day of riding, at my computer desk in my house.

You see, there are a few things I want you to take from this story.

The first is this: I was being dumb. I knew my engine needed to be warmed up a lot more before expecting it to perform at highway speeds. But I was dumb and impatient and went anyway. I didn't think about the consequences and I didn't think about my safety because frankly, I didn't care at the time. But God did. God didn't say, "Well, I don't really care about this one teen aged, impatient kid out of a million down there, I'll just let this one slide." (No pun intended.) God looked out for me although I knowingly did something incredibly stupid.

The second thing Is this: I didn't do anything to deserve the outcome - God didn't base his actions on mine. When I was sliding sideways down the road, I wasn't thinking to myself, "Okay stay calm. Remember the training course and hit the clutch when the tires are lined up." I didn't lie in wait, stoically, until the back tire clicked into position before jamming that clutch handle and saving the day. Instead, I sat there with my feet sliding on the asphalt, yelling profanities at the top of my lungs and acting on instinct. And look what God gave me! It wasn't what I deserved, that's for sure. I deserved, from my actions, to be shot from the bike and land headfirst on the trunk of an oncoming semi truck. Ephesians 2:8-9 says this: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast." God saves us not based on what we do, God saves us because He loves us.

The last thing I want you to realize is this: I recognized and believed that it was God. I didn't call it luck or chance, although those are surely easier, more widely accepted answers - telling you all about my incredible luck earlier today would be much easier than telling you all this. But I knew and proclaimed that it was God. In John 3:18, Jesus Himself says "Whoever believes in him [Jesus] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." I put my faith and belief in Jesus Christ and he delivered me from death.

So the question you have to ask now is: where does that put me? Maybe you've already placed your life in the hands of Jesus. Maybe you've already recognized that it's not based on what you've done or do, but rather on His love for you (that one rimed.) Maybe you've proclaimed with your mouth and believed with your heart that Jesus is King. If that's you, congratulations - I owe you a high-five.

If it's not you, think long and hard on this because let me tell you right now, it's worth it. God is worth it. Maybe you're not interested in religion. That's cool, neither am I. It hurts me when someone calls me "religious." it truly does, and here's why: religion is man's attempt at understanding God. Religion is the commentary on what God has said. I'm not interested in religion any more... I'm not interested in checking the box every Sunday or taking the "Communion Pill" to feel good about myself. I could care less about trying to impress others with how righteous I look or act. Now I'm not telling you to blow off going to church or anything, I'm just urging you not to show up, say some prayers, sing some songs, check church of your "to do" list, and then leave. I'm also not insinuating that the only result of religion is to take the focus off of God... in fact, I came to get my first glimpse of Jesus through a religious organization. But what I am getting at is that being "religious" doesn't bring you salvation - Jesus does. What I am after, and what I strongly urge you to seek out, is a relationship with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. That, and nothing else, is what interests me.

Or maybe you're just not sure about this God character. Maybe you believe there's "something up there," but haven't looked into it or don't want to look into it. Please, please, please, give God a chance. Dedicate some of your time and efforts to seeking out who He is, because He won't let you down. Think about it - if there really is "something up there," wouldn't you want to know more about Who or what it is? God is waiting for you with open arms.

Thank you all for reading this. I know it was a bit wordy, but seeing how God can't be placed even into billions of millions of words, I'd say I did pretty good at keeping it short.

If you have questions, comments, hate mail, whatever, please feel free to contact me. Call me, talk to me, send me smoke signals. I want to hear from you all, and I want to help in whatever way I can.

I hope you're all having an awesome Veterans Day weekend.


-Daniel