Tire Trouble

As I was lounging around on my day off enjoying the football highlights on Sports Center and praying that the Yankee's would lose that night I got a call from my beautiful and incredibly talented wife. As she used the ever troubling, "you'll never guess what happened line," my mind ran through a gambit of thoughts and potential horror until she revealed the purpose for the call. "Um babe, my tire blew up and I'm on I-5 near Mountlake Terrace." She revealed that her friends husband was on the way and would fix the problem. Unfortunately I was relived that I wouldn't have to leave the comfort of my lay-z boy and Sports Center.

After a failed attempt to remove the tire, I was called out of the bullpen to retire the side. Annoyed I hoped into my car toting a hammer and some other tools, showed up onto the scene and pounded the tire off the car. Before this the gentleman helping proclaimed that I would be his hero if I could get the tire off. About 10 Seconds later the tire was off and I was another persons hero. We ended up a Les Schwab in Lynnwood and $270 later she had some new tires and I had new (badly needed) windshield wipers.

After we got home and I had a chance to process my reaction and emotions to the whole situation I realized something. I had changed. When we were dating if she had the littlest hang nail she couldn't fix, I would mount my trusty stead and don my shinning armor and come to her rescue. Now after two years of marriage she's in a real crisis and I'm annoyed. God began to confront me on this issue. Often serving others is not difficult, but serving those closest to you and who you love the most is. It's as if you get so comfortable being around them all the time you forget they need help too. It's often more difficult to serve a parent, a spouse, a sibling or a close friend than a total stranger and yet we should serve all regardless of how much they love us.

It's funny this happened because a week ago I preached on picking up a towel and serving others. We cannot sit at the table of life and just wait to be loved and serve, but rather we must get up from the table, pick up the towel, as Jesus did and serve. Where was my towel yesterday? It shows all of us need to keep growing even after we think we have it down. I learned a valuable lesson yesterday and died to self a little more. I will note however that I redeemed myself by vacuuming and doing laundry when we got home. :-)