These days, we think of tricycles simply as a child’s toy, but in the 1880s they were popular with adults too. The more modern safety bicycle, chain-driven and with two equal-sized wheels, only developed around 1885. Earlier bikes had been cumbersome to ride and difficult to steer.

Queen Victoria bought two tricycles. She didn’t ride them herself, but believed strongly in supporting British Industry. Her Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, road his tricycle across St James Park for exercise – but was followed by a footman, who pushed him uphill. He weighted eighteen stone.

In 1884, fashionable ladies’ magazine The Queen, reported on a tricycle expedition undertaken by two young ladies whose names we don’t know, but who were evidently educated and fairly ‘well-off’ living in the smart area of St John’s wood, near Lords Cricket ground. Their three-wheelers gave them freedom that was new for women at the time.

The book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible references the cycle of life. Now, this is not referring to a description of a mechanical means of transport, but in verses 3-11 of Chapter 1, we note the constant cycles of life:

What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”?
It has been already in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.

Do you feel this way about elements of your life?   Do you have a sense of just living life in an endless cycle of working to just pay off the bills?  Dealing with the mundane nature of life is as timeless as mankind’s presence on the planet.

But life - yours and mine - does not have to be this endless and seemingly, futile cycle, but can be a great adventure with joy, peace and blessing around every corner, when we allow Jesus to take control of our lives.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. (Luke 19:10)

Jesus came to save all those lost in sin – all those lost in a sense of futility and hopelessness. He came to show us the way.

Jesus said:
I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (John 10:9-11)

Find out more HERE.