{"id":1647,"date":"2012-08-28T18:55:02","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T22:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/?p=1647"},"modified":"2012-08-27T14:42:06","modified_gmt":"2012-08-27T18:42:06","slug":"an-empty-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/08\/an-empty-ride.html","title":{"rendered":"An Empty Ride"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We went to the county fair last week and got there before the rides opened up.\u00a0 There sat the lonely Ferris-wheel spinning around without anyone on it.\u00a0 It was being faithful to provide the ride it&#8217;s passengers desired, but alas no riders came.\u00a0 Around and around it went, giving a fantastic view of the whole fairgrounds.\u00a0 I could almost feel the wind in my hair as it circled again and again.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/259\/2012\/08\/IMG_11552.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-1655\" title=\"IMG_1155\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/259\/2012\/08\/IMG_11552.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"235\" height=\"219\" \/><\/a>Isn&#8217;t it sad that God many times provides us with thrills and adventure and we never get on the ride?\u00a0 We have so many opportunities to serve the Lord and build His Kingdom, yet we seem satisfied to sit by and watch.\u00a0 Some are simply afraid to try something new.\u00a0 They worry about failure or letting God down.\u00a0 If one never tries to do anything new, there is no chance for failure.\u00a0 But, there is no chance for success either.<\/p>\n<p>New experiences can be scary, but God will always supply what we need when we step out in faith for Him.\u00a0 His strength is made perfect in our weakness and His grace is sufficient in all situations.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t let life pass you by and only be a spectator to the wonderful opportunities He provides for us each day.\u00a0 Get on the ride.\u00a0 Fly through the air. See the world from a higher place.\u00a0 Or, just get on the Ferris-wheel!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We went to the county fair last week and got there before the rides opened up.\u00a0 There sat the lonely Ferris-wheel spinning around without anyone on it.\u00a0 It was being faithful to provide the ride it&#8217;s passengers desired, but alas no riders came.\u00a0 Around and around it went, giving a fantastic view of the whole&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":420,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,36],"tags":[86,19,45],"class_list":["post-1647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-just-for-fun","tag-fair","tag-faith","tag-personal-growth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>An Empty Ride - Small Town America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/08\/an-empty-ride.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Empty Ride - Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We went to the county fair last week and got there before the rides opened up.\u00a0 There sat the lonely Ferris-wheel spinning around without anyone on it.\u00a0 It was being faithful to provide the ride it&#8217;s passengers desired, but alas no riders came.\u00a0 Around and around it went, giving a fantastic view of the whole&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/08\/an-empty-ride.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-28T22:55:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-08-27T18:42:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/files\/2012\/08\/IMG_11552.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dhanny\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"An Empty Ride - 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