All that glitters is not gold

Cycling is one of the hardest sports that exist.

The face of a cyclist shows his suffering when he is climbing that difficult mountain pass, or when he is feeling in his legs the effect of more than 124 miles in the saddle.

MARILYN WELLS participated several times in the ladies' Tour de France, and belonged to the 'Ultimate Team' (as a member of the 'Christian Cycling Club') and she had often experienced the difficulty and the discipline of this sport.

These were also demonstrated by one of the best cyclists in the world, LANCE AMSTRONG, seven times champion of the Tour de France, especially after having fought a battle against cancer.

In cycling, as in any other sport, there are rules to follow. One of the less well-known is the prohibition against riding in a slipstream in a time trial.

When you ride in the slipstream of another cyclist, you need less effort because the one who goes ahead does all the hard work, coping with wind in the face, tiredness, and loneliness... So in time trials, this is forbidden.

One of the problems in our society is the number of people who 'ride in the slipstream' behind others; they take advantage of other people's work and effort to gain recognition for themselves.

But when something goes wrong, they hide and try to avoid the consequences of their mistakes.

Many Christians live in the same way. They pretend to be Christians by saying the right things and pretending to do good, and they're able to deceive everyone, even themselves!

They are expert actors: they do things just for show, and then, when no one is looking, they stop behaving like Christians In the end they don't even know themselves what they are.

Is this something that has become more common in recent years? There are those who go to church (but not too much, lest they become 'infected' by the truth), they listen to the sermons and sing (but without a lot of enthusiasm), and they may even be able to hold a conversation about God.

But that is as deep as it goes, because compromise and obedience do not exist beside each other in this type of pretense.

It is not honorable to hide behind others in this way. These people shine but do not have gold inside.

The only thing that is truly worthwhile is to be totally involved with the message of God.