Flat tires are inconvenient.  They happen at inconvenient times and in inconvenient places.

But sometimes that inconvenience has an entirely different story attached to it, a story being orchestrated by God.

My brother was finishing up a business trip in New York City.  Kind of an inconvenient place to come out and find a flat tire.  It was inconvenient to call someone to change the tire, inconvenient to have to drive slowly all the way back to New Jersey because the flat tire had been replaced by one of those silly temporary donut tires.  And it was inconvenient to spend all of Saturday morning at the tire place attempting to get the flat repaired when we were trying to get ready for a family graduation party.

But that inconvenience might have saved lives.

The flat tire couldn’t be repaired because closer inspection revealed it was defective to begin with.  And the other front tire was defective as well.  If it hadn’t gone flat in a parking lot, it might have blown out completely on a major highway…with a toddler and an infant in the back seat.

Sometimes God lets the inconvenient happen to save us from something far worse.

The next time I’m in a situation I didn’t plan and find utterly inopportune, I hope I’ll remember to step back before I jump to all sorts of silly and selfish conclusions, and think about the fact that God might be orchestrating something behind the scenes to protect me, or bless me.

Because inconvenience just might be a blessing in disguise.

For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.  Psalm 91:11

In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.  Proverbs 3:6

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust.  Psalm 91:2