Uh oh! Michael R. just stole your KOM!

That’s the subject line of an email I got just over two months ago. You can see a picture of the email above.

It still makes me mad. I didn’t lose my KOM, someone stole it. Someone named Michael. A plague on his house, I say.

Lost My KOM

But before you call the police, you should know that while KOMs are valuable to me, they are actually meant to be stolen; before Michael stole it from me, I stole it from a guy named Brian.

At this point, I know most of my readers are lost, so let me help: KOM stands for “King of (the) Mountain.” It’s a cycling term – sometimes a formal designation in professional cycling, and sometimes an informal one.

I didn’t earn my KOM in professional cycling of course, but while using the app called Strava (www.strava.com).

Strava is a combo of Facebook and a personal fitness tracker, but with the ability to compete on designated “segments.” There are thousands of “segments” across the world. And when you ride through one with a GPS, you get timed, and then your time is ranked against all of the other riders that have ridden that segment.

You can see in the email that my KOM was on the “Overton Climb”— stress on the word “was”; Michael beat my time by 8 seconds.

As mad as I was at whoever this Michael guy is, I was thankful for the reminder that treasures on earth do not last. Here on earth, people can steal them. But I am also thankful for the reminder that  Jesus gives: there is a place to keep treasures that is more secure than Fort Knox.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21, ESV)

Where is your treasure – on earth or in Heaven?

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