Can I trust God to give me what I need?
It was the last day of freedom before the first day of my junior year in high school.
My family has a long-standing tradition of going to get ice cream on nice summer days. We live right next to a canal that connects us to a dairy and ice cream store that is one of the best ice cream places near my town. We bike seven miles along the canal to get there.
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I wanted to spend the last day of summer outside, doing something perfect for the weather, so I decided to bike the trip myself. It was a beautiful day: no clouds, not too hot, and the sun was shining through the leaves. The croaking of frogs and the buzz of insects filled the air as I biked past countless happy dogs and people enjoying the nice summer day just as I was.
My back tire had gone flat.
About halfway through the bike ride, I started to get unusually tired, and pedaling felt like I was biking through a trail of sticky mud. I became aware of a continuous thumping behind me, but because of the music playing in my headphones, I hadn’t been paying much attention to this noise—that is, until I realized the noise was coming from my bike! My back tire had gone flat.
I was too far away from my house to make biking back with a flat tire worth the effort. So I decided to keep going and try to make it to a town that I knew was farther along the canal. I was worried about ruining a wheel while biking on a flat tire, and I also didn’t want to make my mom drive almost an hour to come get me. But instead of continuing to worry about my situation and the potential problems that I was imagining, I turned to God in prayer. I’d learned in the past that I can pray, no matter what I’m facing, and it will always help me.
Having biked this path many times before, I doubted that I would find any pumps to put air in my tire. But I continued to pray because it gave me hope to lean on.
I prayed with the idea that I am always in God’s kingdom. In the Bible, Jesus tells us this when he says, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). To me, this means that there is never a time when we are beyond God’s care, because God is everywhere. God is always looking out for me, and I knew I could rely on that.
I thought about the fact that God always provides for me. Since I live in God’s kingdom, I am never outside of God’s love and protection. As these ideas filled my thoughts, I continued to bike, feeling more and more trust in God’s provision.
I thought about the fact that God always provides for me.
Eventually, I needed to go on the sidewalk for about five hundred feet before getting back to the canal trail. As I biked up a small hill to get back onto the path, I saw a newly installed public bike pump right in front of me! I was overjoyed and so grateful that the exact thing I needed was directly in my path. I quickly pumped my back tire and continued all the way to the ice cream shop. After getting some peach ice cream and enjoying myself, I made it safely home.
I’m grateful for this experience and the reassurance that God’s care will always be there and that I really can trust in Him for anything. I am also so thankful that I have Christian Science in my life to teach me that I never have to be afraid because God is always with me.