Editor's Note: Tell this illustration as a story or as a prop illustration by using an actual bicycle or a bike tire.

On a recent bike trip it wasn't until I finally arrived home that I noticed something wrong. My tires were low. They needed air. The funny thing about bike tires is I don't remember taking air out of them. It just went. Somewhere. Somehow. Air leaks.

My tires weren't crazy low, but low enough to know that my efforts in peddling were not producing maximum return. Each rotation was just a little bit harder than it would be had the tires been filled properly.

It got me thinking. Life is like a bike tire. We don't intentionally take air out … it just leaves. And just as it's harder to peddle with flat tires, it's not as fun to live when the air has leaked out of our lives. We don't know where it goes or how. Life just has a way of deflating us. Difficult conversations … hisssssss (that's the sound of air leaving your tires!). Tough day at work … hisssssss. Overwhelmed by circumstance … hisssssss. It happens to all of us.

So where in my life am I being re-inflated? Where am I pausing long enough to "fill my tires"? I know for me it happens when I drive by myself, worship music cranked. Re-filling. It happens when I take my Bible and a journal to the beach and let God speak to me. Re-filling. It happens to me when the stories of God at work fill my spirit. Having a coffee with a wise and trusted friend.

What about you? Are you going through life with flat tires? How fun is that? How much effort are you putting out in relation to the return? What if you made a decision to pause and re-fill? Do you know your re-filling stations? How does God fill your tires and push you onward?