It’s Only a Slow Leak.

I’m sure you’ve been there too. You discovered suddenly that your vehicle tire is low. This happened to me during a critical time in my travels. It’s not the only time that it’s happened but it’s one that I can talk about without feeling the frustration of that moment.

I had scheduled a breakfast one early morning out of town and after breakfast I was getting ready to head to my next appointment. Suddenly I looked down and noticed that the alert symbol on my dashboard indicated a low tire. I immediately thought, why now? As I looked at my gauge reader on the dash but it indicated that it was going down about one PSI per minute. As I started out driving I could watch the indicator as it lost pressure in the tire. I was about 20 minutes from the office and I calculated that it’s likely I could arrive and get it to the repair shop before my tire was totally flat.

It was like a contest, a competition. I could see that the tire was going down as I rapidly hurried along in hopes that my calculations were correct. I had hoped to have enough air in the tire that I would not have to stop to change it along the roadway. I did make it to the shop and the repair man pulled out a large nail embedded in the tread line of the tire.

We’ve all had those slow leaks in our lives. It’s those times when we think, it’s just a slow leak and it won’t make a difference. But in reality those slow leaks eventually end up becoming  disasters. We can see it in our habits and attitudes. We can realize it in our activities when our production seems to slow. We can even see it in our spiritual life when we neglect the important things for those that are least important.

Maybe we skimp a little bit on prayer or we cut back on our devotional life because we are hurried. We rushed through life because of all the things that seem to pick away at our schedules. Yet, it’s those little things that seem to matter which causes us to eventually lose and fall back. We cut back intentionally not recognizing the warning signs on our dashboard of life. The indications are there in front of us but we put it off because, after all it’s a slow leak.

There’s so much that could be said based on this metaphor of our tire pressure. In life we don’t always have the opportunity to refill. Sometimes the flat tire is a disaster. It’s a slowly ticking time bomb that eventually messes with so much in our lives.

It may be those little compromises that we make or shortcuts that we think will get us ahead. We are all the same in this regard. A slow leak can have major negative consequences. Proverbs 3:13 reminds us that we are blessed when we do find wisdom. In the book of James he tells us to pray for wisdom. It’s in our efforts to gain not only understanding but true wisdom in the roadway of life. Instead of taking shortcuts let us become stewards of wisdom.