HOW’D THAT GET THERE?
My sister, Robbie and I took a trip not too long ago in her car and when we stopped for gas I opened up her trunk to get something and starting thinking to myself, "what if we have a flat tire on this trip?" I decided to take a glance and make sure I knew where the spare tire was and the tools I would need if I had to change the tire along side the road. Robbie drives a Honda CRV. You have to pop up the window and then open the hatch to get into the back. I moved things around and pulled up the floor covering in the back looking for the spare tire, but it was nowhere to be found.
"Robbie, come back here," I yelled. Robbie slowly climbed out of the car and strolled to the back of the car where I was standing with my hands on my hips. I was looking very agitated.
"What's up?" asked Robbie.
"Where is your spare tire?" I asked.
"I don't know. Isn't it in the trunk there?" Robbie asked, sticking her head in to look.
"No, it's not," I replied and proceeded to give her a lecture about riding around town without a spare tire.
For the rest of the trip, every time I got the chance, I reminded her how important it was to have a spare tire. I mean, I'm the older sister so it was my responsibility to ride her about this.
"Will you stop with the spare tire thing already? If we have a flat tire we'll just ride to the closest station and get it fixed," said Robbie with a look of disgust on her face. I decided to let up for awhile and enjoy the rest of the trip.
When we arrived back home, Robbie decided to wash her car and vacuum it out. "She cleans out her car, but she doesn't pay attention to the important things, like a spare tire," I mumbled to myself as I went inside the house. Just as I sat down to read the newspaper, Robbie yelled for me to come back outside. I mumbled some more, but made my way back out. There she was, standing behind her car with a very smug look on her face.
"What is it?" I asked impatiently.
"I found my spare tire," she said.
I popped opened the back window, swung open the back door and looked inside the trunk.“Where, I don't see it?" I said, pulling up everything to look underneath it.
Robbie grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the car. She then slammed the back door shut and pointed to the spare tire that was hanging there on the back. I couldn't believe it. We had opened that door a hundred times on our trip, while we frantically looked for the spare tire and never saw it hanging on the back of the car. I felt like an idiot.
"See, I do too have a spare tire," Robbie said proudly. I had no answer back. We just stared at each other and then burst into laughter. The spare tire had been the subject at hand the whole trip and now it had mysteriously appeared on the back of the car. We laughed at ourselves and how we could have been so blind. One of us not seeing it there was one thing, but both of us? How humiliating. You’ve heard the saying, “What’s two times zero?”
Sometimes the answer we seek is right in front of us and we just pass right by it. We search, worry and scratch our heads. We make the solution seem very complicated and out of reach, but often it's hanging right in front of us.
Prayer reveals answers to our problems if we put time aside for meditating on His Word and let God speak to us. He knows the problems and holds the answers. We just need to stop frantically running from place to place trying to find the answers for ourselves and learn to be still and listen for His voice. He does still speak to us today. We just don't take the time to listen. We're too busy, or we think the problem's too big, or we believe we can handle our problems all byourselves. This kind of thinking keeps us from finding the answers God has placed right in front of us. If we just slow down, take a step back and then be still and listen we will find the answers we need in life.
By the way, Robbie recently put a big tire cover over her spare tire so it will be more visible in the future. We found the tire, now if we could only find the jack.
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