The Nail and the Tread
I recently had a group of girls over for our bi-weekly Bible Study, and we were going around sharing our “highs and lows” of the previous week. One of the ladies shared this story with us and we couldn’t stop laughing (all in good fun), but I literally told her that there was an entire sermon illustration in the story she had just told. And that’s exactly what I’m about to write up today.
The story starts with a nail in a tire.
Our friend had noticed that her tire pressure kept going down and her tire kept needing to be inflated, so she took her car in to the shop so that they could get her tire and patch up the problematic nail. Her dad tags along with her in case she needs any help, though honestly it’s just a nail, it’s not like you need your hand held through a little patch. The tire tech comes out to check the car and suddenly there’s all this commotion. The tech and her dad keep focusing on every tire except the one that’s got the nail in it. Our friend can’t understand why they’re all in a flurry over the other tires when clearly the problem is the nail.
Instead they tell her that she needs to have all her tires completely replaced, but she’s like, “Sir! The nail! That’s the problem!” They look at her and say, “No, it’s the tread that’s the problem. Your tires have no tread.” To which she points to the tire with the nail in it, and she’s like “No…this is the tire that keeps deflating. The nail is the problem!” The tech looks at her deadpan and asks, “M’am, do you know what tread is?”
(No, she did not.)
And it was at this point of the dramatic retelling of the story that we all had a good laugh. She told us she learned what tire tread was that day, and how all of her tires got replaced. I loved her honesty and ability to laugh at herself too.
The Moral of the Story
For those of you who read through the little allegory above and wondered what the big deal was or why we’d be laughing so much, you probably don’t know what tread is either!
Tread is the outer rubber part of the tire that makes contact with the road, it’s made of unique grooves and patterns. The purpose of the grooves is to move water or ice away from the rubber as fast as possible so as to prevent the car from sliding on a wet surface. A deeper groove allows more water to be moved away, but older tires lose tread as they age and your car starts sliding more on wet surfaces, which can have deadly consequences.
The irony of our friend’s story was that while she was focusing on the nail that was causing air to leak out, the tech and her dad were focusing on the tread that was putting her life at risk every time she drove on a wet day.
I think what makes this little story so great is that it’s a great allegory for our own prayer lives with the Lord.
There was a little bothersome nail that led our friend to go and get help in the first place. I think we can all relate here. We all have certain “nails” in our lives that keep us going to the Father. Immediate pain points that we want him to focus on and fix quickly.
But then while we’re in prayer for those pain points, the Lord begins to uncover larger issues at hand that he wants to deal with and resolve. Ones that for one reason or another were hidden to us or ones that we didn’t think the focus needed to be on, but are important and serious enough that the Father has decided they need to be fixed…now!
We look at him and go, “But God, the nail!!” and he’s like, “Honey, the tread!!”.
I think we as Christians often don’t realize that God is in the business of making sure we run the good race to its full completion. His concern is with our longevity, our steadfastness, our character.
We could be looking at God and saying, “But God, the ring!” and he’s like, “Honey, let’s take care of your ability to trust me and have faith in me.” Or we could be saying, ‘But God, that person I have problems with!” and he could respond, “Honey, let’s work on your ability to forgive and move on.” Tack on whatever pain point you’re most likely to go to the Lord with here, and consider his response instead.
Like I said, the nail versus the tread.
I love this quote I read from Eugene Peterson recently. He says,
“Praying puts us at risk of getting involved with God’s conditions. Praying most often doesn’t get us what we want, but what God wants, something quite at variance with what we conceive to be in our best interests. And when we realize what’s going on, it is often too late to go back.” (1)
Our concerns tend to be with those immediately in front of us. But that does not mean that he doesn’t care about our immediate pain points, those nails. What I love about the Lord is that in taking care of the larger things, he will also take care of the smaller issues in the end too.
Our friend went into the tire shop expecting the nail to be removed and a little patch put in its place. Her nail problem did get taken care of…by having all the tires replaced!
In taking care of the tread, God will take care of the nails too, though it might not always be by the means you expect him to. Trust that he has got your best interests at heart, and will deal with it all accordingly. Amen!
And PSA:
Since we’re talking about tires, this is probably a good moment to remind y’all to go and get them rotated for the winter, and get that tread checked out!
—xoxo
Footnotes
(1) Fighting Shadows: Jefferson Bethke and Jon Tyson, pg. 126.
