Read or listen then scroll down to the end for questions to help you apply this to your everyday life!

For a little over a month I’ve been nursing a leaky tire. Initially, I had to put about ten pounds of air in it once a week just to keep the air pressure at a reasonable level. For the last couple of weeks I’ve had to air it up every few days, as the air started leaking out faster and faster.

Every time I got in the car, the first thing I would do is check the tire pressure gauge. The one time I didn’t check it before I pulled off was one of the times it was at it’s lowest and I had to make the tough decision to turn around, go back home, and fill it up again. Even as I drove, I was continuously distracted by watching the number drop as I went along.

As I drove around town, I was constantly praying and asking God to keep me safe. In the back of my mind I was always hoping I wouldn’t have a blowout while I was driving. Because of that, there were several times when I would drive slower than I needed to, thinking that somehow maybe that would help.

The other night when the temperature dropped down into the twenties, my immediate thoughts were I needed to be sure to drip my faucets and put some air in my tire – knowing the air in the tire would surly drastically condense at that temperature. Going outside to inflate a tire is the last thing I should have been thinking about when it was twenty-four degrees outside! One morning I even got my daughter to school right as the first bell was ringing because I had to air up the tire before we were able to leave.

I finally decided to take my car in to have someone look at the tire. And even though I really didn’t want to have to pay for a whole new set of tires, I had them to go ahead and look at all four to see if it was time for them to be replaced. Less than an hour later, the gentleman came to me to let me know I didn’t need new tires yet. They found a nail in the leaky tire, were able to remove it, and successfully plug it. Grateful I didn’t have to buy a whole new set of tires right now, I asked the gentleman how much I owed for them plugging the one tire and he said, “Nothing.” WOW! I drove away extremely grateful and humbled at the same time.

Immediately I saw how this was a reflection of how we so often live our lives. We allow small issues to linger way longer than we should and they eventually cause us greater troubles. We apply band-aids instead of addressing the root cause of the problem. We waste time doing tasks that could be eliminated if we would just do the one thing that could remedy the issue all together.

We are constantly distracted by monitoring the problems we’re allowing to remain. We feel like we aren’t making any progress in life because instead of being able to continuously move forward, we have to turn around and deal with unresolved issues. We experience delay after delay because we’re slowly creeping along at a reduced pace trying to minimize the potential ramifications of moving full speed ahead. We are praying and asking God to do something supernatural when we haven’t even done what we know we should do in the natural. We fail to consistently monitor our gauge, the Bible, and we wonder how we’ve reached an all-time low.

We live in fear instead of living free. We continue to deal with old problems in new seasons. We adversely affect other people because we won’t actively address our problems.

Often times, we continue to live our lives this way because we’re afraid of what it might cost us if we got the help we need to really resolve the problem. We somehow don’t even realize the greater damage we’re causing by allowing it to continue to fester. We haven’t yet quite accepted the fact that Jesus has already paid the price and He’s willing and able to free us from all the extra work we’re putting on ourselves.

If the “tire” of your life has a leak and you’ve been working to try to keep filling it on your own, I encourage you to go to the One who can fix it. Because the nail that may be causing a leak in your tire, has nothing on the nails He endured for you on the cross!

Questions to Ask

· What slow leak in your life have you been nursing for far too long?

· In what ways have you TIREd yourself out by trying to continue to patch what only Jesus can fix?

Scripture to Study

· Matthew 11:28

· Colossians 2:14

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