I was born in Malaysia. Like many kids growing up, I learnt to ride a bicycle. In fact, I loved riding bicycles so much that I would spend many afternoons and weekends riding between friends’ houses, roaming the neighborhood, and exploring. In my days, cars were lesser, and mega highways weren’t built yet. The only highway that I knew of back then was the Federal Highway that spanned the city of Kuala Lumpur to Port Klang.

It was a fine, hot and dusty afternoon when I encountered a flat tire. I was riding home from my good friend’s house when I struck a flat alongst an area littered with construction and new homes being built. I was riding a single gear 20” BMX. It was a looooonnnnnnnnggggggg ride between friend’s house to my home. It was probably about 10kms or so. With the blazing Malaysian sun, you’d get toasted and tired. A flat was not helpful at all when you still have to ride about another 9 kms!

So. how did I get home that day? There was a cool TV show called MacGyver when I was growing up. This guy was the Mr. Cool & Mr. Fixit all. He was able to get things fixed up by using scraps and bits and pieces all around him! I thought of being MacGyver when I got that flat. There were no taxis nearby or Grab or Uber services back in those days. I thought to myself that the only way to get home was NOT to push the bike, but to get the puncture fixed.

I really have to thank God for giving me ‘help’ & creativity. So, here I was standing and scratching my head on the side of the road. Lo and behold, I saw a disused black electrical tape, probably no more than 4 to 5cm long. I thought quickly that I could use that to cover the puncture in the inner tube! And for whatever reason, I have to thank God that my puncture happened ‘only’ about half a km from a petrol station I just biked past. I thought to myself, “Perhaps I could get the electrical tape patched between the punctured tube and tire, pump the tire up real hard, and pray that the force between the tube and the punctured tire could keep the electrical tape covering the hole!” Get it?

To cut the long story short, I took that bit of electrical tape, and pushed the bike to the petrol station. I managed to open up a gap between the tire and the rim, found the hole, and patched the puncture with that bit of electrical tape I found by the side of the road. I did get to pump up the tire real hard at the petrol station (at the risk of bursting the tire again with too much pressure).

Once I pumped up the tire, I wasted no time and pedaled like furiously and madly to get home!!

I was totally ‘punctured’ (no pun intended) and puffed out when I got home. I never pedaled so fast in my life for a massive distance of 9km straight! Amazingly, when I got home, the tire was still completely hard with all the air pressure! After I took a nice cold shower, I was amazed to find out that the tire totally deflated after I went back to check it again.

Wow! I thank God for the ingenuity, availability of random resources like a discarded electrical tape and the nearby petrol station in which I could pump up the tire. I thank God for keeping my tires completely pumped up to get home.

A Flat Tire + MacGyver like ideas + God providing ‘supplies’ + you pedaling = “I Know God is and was Always in Control”