The Wind You Never Have to Face Alone

In professional cycling's Tour de France, no rider — no matter how gifted — wins alone. The secret is the peloton, that tightly packed cluster of riders drafting inches behind one another through the French countryside. The rider at the front absorbs the full force of the wind, cutting through resistance so those behind can conserve up to forty percent of their energy. Then, after bearing that burden for a time, the lead rider peels off and drops to the back of the line to recover while someone else takes a turn at the front.

They call them domestiques — the support riders who sacrifice their own chances at glory so a teammate can stand on the podium in Paris. When Chris Froome won four Tour de France titles between 2013 and 2017, he was quick to credit the teammates who shielded him through mountain stages and crosswinds, who brought him water and paced him back to the group when he fell behind.

This is the picture Scripture paints of the body of Christ. "Bear one another's burdens," Paul writes in Galatians 6:2, "and so fulfill the law of Christ." Community is not a collection of individuals riding side by side — it is a peloton, where we take turns facing the wind, where the strong shield the weary, and where no one is expected to ride the whole race alone. Some seasons you pull; other seasons you draft. Both are holy work.