Inflation and Other Matters of the Heart

So I walked out of my apartment bright and early yesterday. I was up early, for once. I was going to make work by 8. And I was wearing my nice new blue button shirt. My front right tire was flat. Not just mildly deflated, but completely flat. My thoughts flashed to the beer bottle that was tossed out in front of my car on the highway the night before. Yes, the bottle made a nice crunching sound on the pavement under my tires. And I remembered that the last time I had changed my tire, there was no handle to the jack so the tire iron had to be used, which was incredibly slow and inefficient.

So now I'm nicely dressed, no longer running early for work, looking at a highly inefficient tire change probably due to litterer. Then the rain drops start falling.

It occurred to me that it is at moments like this, when no one else is around, that an aspect of one's character is truly revealed. Does one curse and get angry? Does one shrug and fix the tire? Does one moan and go ask one's roommate if he can borrow the other car? Does one fall to one's knees and thank God? (Ok, I'm not really sure that reveals strong character, but it is a response.)

Where does the strength - and the desire - to respond well to those situations when there is no social pressure? No praise for a job well done. No rebuke for slipping. Just the stillness of the morning.

We make a lot of these decisions every day, I think. Whether to take the trash out or not. Decisions on whether to call a friend or not. On whether to ask how they've been doing spiritually. Whether to try and know someone better or simply assume we understand them.

A friend of mine loves the expression "God sees". And it's true. But many times I don't see how God is glorified in the small invisible choices we make. I see much clearer how God is glorified when others see our lives and respond to what they see, not to what is unseen. That's the end of where my musings on a flat tire go.

(Incidentally, the flat tire had a slow leak for a year or so that I just kept putting air in monthly. I'd also needed to get the tires rotated. I got it all done for free. And oh, the tire guy said that the tire had a nail in it - nothing about glass shreds. But littering glass bottles in the freeway is still a bad idea.)

P.S. No, I'm not going to share how I reacted to the flat tire. It wouldn't be much of a secret test if I did that, now would it? Slicing my tires and camping out to see how I respond next time isn't fair either.