Providential Love

I've mentioned here before that I like to bike. I have biked all over Sheboygan this summer and it's honestly amazing that I haven't been injured yet. I don't profess to be very road savvy. I follow the law as best as I can, but I'm sure a few of my decisions have been less then optimal. Happily, nobody has gotten uptight (other then that one elderly gentlemen) and I haven't been killed. Today, as I biked to the beach for a school function. I was on a different bike then usual and, being the intelligent person I am, found a way to break it in the first two blocks of my ride. So there I am on the side of the road, nobody to help, just me with a broken bike and absolutely no mechanical prowess. So, I got down on my knees and started moving the chain around, hoping that maybe, just maybe, I could get lucky and somehow fix this compound machine (Thank Mr Andringa for that term). As I often find, that didn't work, although I did find the bike grease to be enjoyable. At some point, through a lot of prayer and of the chain falling off, I got the bike to a point where it would halfway-kinda-pedal-almost. I thought I would just ride it to my destination and that would be that. Well, as I pedaled, the bike would make a clank noise, then keep going. It made this noise every few rotations and I realized, in my brilliance, that this was probably not a good thing. Let me just say, God places things for a reason. For instance, God put a bike shop right in my route. So, in I went. I awkwardly hobbled in, carrying my bike and sheepishly asked the two guys if they could help, ending my story with: "the problem being, I have no money.". At this point I expected them to send me along. Nope, that wasn't in God's plan for me today. The two bike shop workers went right to work. They screwed screw, spun wheels, calibrated random levers, lubed shift triggers and fixed things I certainly didn't know were broken. Then they sent me out with: "It's on the house." And then I left.

Why tell you this story? Point 1: God is a providential God. He brings things and people into our lives just when they are needed. I think the thing I love most is seeing God work. Looking back on a experience and realizing that God was there and active through every step. Point 2: You'll notice that sitting on the side of the road pulling the chain didn't get me very far. When presented with problems, we often turn to ourselves. We fix things on our own. Or we try to. I at there for ten minutes fooling myself into thinking that I could do something worthwhile on that bike, when in reality, not only was it broken in the chain, it was broken in ways I didn't even know. So are we. We are broken in ways that we won't understand until Judgment Day. Also, you'll notice that the bike shop people knew I had no money and they knew I would fail to fix it on my own. Now, I will use the extremely loose symbol of the bike people as God. God knows we are helpless, He knows we have nothing to offer, but He still saves us in ways we didn't know we were broken. That's God. Showing Himself through little moments in life.