I had never been so glad to see a police officer in my life.
I was parked on the hard shoulder on Auckland's southern motorway during morning rush hour, cars and trucks racing past me at 100km/h. My little Honda Jazz shook like a leaf whenever a heavy-laden truck rumbled by.
The morning had started like any other regular workday, with me rushing out the door in a frenzy, handbag in one hand and lunch in another.
But things started to unravel along the way when I heard a loud, scratching noise from the rear of my car.
Initially, I had thought the noise was from one of the many trucks on the motorway, groaning under the weight of their respective heavy loads.
"That'll be it. That's probably where the noise has come from," I thought as I continued driving.
But as the noise grew louder and as my car refused to move despite me pressing on the accelerator, I thought it was probably best to stop to see what the fuss was all about.
What a fuss it turned out to be! A blown tyre!
So there I was, parked on the hard shoulder, with my hazard lights blinking, and with no idea what to do—apart from ringing AA.
"A blown tyre?" the motorway patrol officer asked as he emerged from his car. He was a kind fatherly figure and had probably helped hapless motorists change their flat tyres more times than he cared to count.
I nodded glumly and said I had tried ringing AA but to no avail, all their operators were busy. "It's been a busy morning for them," he said.
"Wait, how did you know I was here?" I asked the police officer, who seemed to have miraculously appeared out of thin air.
You see, one minute I was on my cell phone trying to ring AA, but no sooner had I hung up that I noticed a police car had pulled up behind me.
As it turns out, my little incident was caught on camera and the officer, who was on his way to another breakdown a little farther from where I was, had been asked to attend to mine instead.
Twenty-minutes later I was back on the road and made it to work in the nick of time.
God in the midst of our needs
I know that we can count on God in our times of need, but I always had this image of God swooping in (like a knight in shining armour) to save us at the 11th hour. It wasn't until my little incident with my blown tyre that I realised God is also interested in rescuing us in the most mundane emergencies—a blown tyre.
I believe too often as Christians we feel like we need to be in a big mega-crisis before we can call to God for help.
However, I know that God would love to jump to our rescue no matter how big or small our problems may be.
I sometimes find myself breaking my problems down into three categories—"hard, definitely for God"; "kind of hard, God can step in if He wants, but I can solve it on my own"; and "easy—no need to bother God at all".
Of course, the reverse can also be applied. There were times where I had decided my problems were too big for God and it was probably best I solved them myself.
But that's not how God works. He wants to be part of our everyday life and that means coming to our rescue when we need it—even if it is just sending a police officer to help with a blown tyre.
First published in Christian Today New Zealand