A Four-Leafed Clover?

 I like to mountain bike…have I mentioned that before? Recently I was on a ride with a friend in the Coast Range out of McMinnville. We were climbing a trail we hadn’t ridden in a while. When you’re climbing, if at all possible, you don’t want to stop. You just want to get “the burn” over with and get to the top. As we were deep into the burn, we encountered a log across the trail. The log wasn’t on the ground (some of those you can “hop”). It wasn’t high enough to ride under. It stopped our progress.

We encountered an obstacle.

What do you do when you encounter an obstacle? I don’t always follow the advice I’m about to give, but…

When you encounter an obstacle,

the first thing to do is STOP!

We stopped. And as we paused, we looked out into the forest. The floor of the forest was carpeted in clover. Wow! My friend and I were raving about the clover and realized that we pay a lot of money to have people make the grass in our yards look green and stay trimmed and edged. Who pays the forest? And how much does that cost? The old adage that the best things in life are free rang true yet again.

These thoughts led us to the next thought: What if the log hadn’t been there? We would have ridden on and maybe made our goal of not putting a foot down as we rode the trail, but we would have missed the best part. Could it just be:

Sometimes obstacles provide

unforeseen opportunities?

What obstacles have you encountered so far this year? Did you miss an opportunity? If you’re like me, the obstacle I encountered today is very likely to blind me to an opportunity. Looking back at my bike ride, today’s obstacle takes on a different look. Might it provide a new opportunity? As I write, I’m stopping. I want to wait for the opportunity. Who knows, this “clover” might even have four leaves…