Running on Fumes

How many of you actually find pleasure in stopping to fill your automobile’s tank with gas? I’m not sure I know anyone that really gets excited or joyful about this activity, but it is absolutely necessary if we want to continue moving forward in our automobile. Some of you are wondering where in the heck I’m going with this, but please bare with me; I promise I have a legitimate point here. It’s just gonna take a minute to get there so hang tight with me.

I’m typically not one that likes to see how far I can push or stretch things. I guess you could say I prefer to be prepared for the things of life. So, naturally it is a rare occurrence that I would let my gas gage go below a ¼ of a tank. However… the other day I found myself in a pretty dangerous position. I had allowed myself to get to the point to where I was literally running on fumes. My gas light had come on while I was on my way to work, but I pushed away the inconvenience of stopping on a cold morning to fill up my tank. I told myself that I would just stop on my way home. All the while I was just hoping I would be able to make it to work. During this time, I turned off the radio and heat in an effort to stretch the energy (and to be honest I was not sure if this was even going to work or not).

For the 8 hours while I was at work, I was able to completely forget about the bad situation I had put myself in. That is; until it was time to head home and I was back in the dreaded position of hoping I made it to the gas station in time. And of course, I got stuck in the 5:00 traffic (with the radio off again in an attempt to ‘save energy’). The gas station was in sight; it was just a matter of getting there. You’ll be happy to know that indeed I made it and got a good complete fill up of the stuff that makes my car go.

By now, you are probably wondering what the significance of this story is. Well, you are about to find out. I find it humorous how God can use something as simple as almost running out of gas to teach me a simple lesson. After I had filled up my car and was able to breathe a sigh of relief I couldn’t help but relate the situation to my spiritual ‘fill ups’ per say. I love it how he uses the simple day to day life happenings to teach us more about ourselves and Him. He is so good at that!

Here’s my though process in it all… Our cars need gas to run. Most of us don’t particularly enjoy stopping to fill our cars with gas, but we do it because it is absolutely necessary. And not only that, but it is necessary on a consistent basis. When I think about my spiritual life and what keeps me going, I wonder why I get low on fumes and have a hard time running sometimes. Light bulb moment!! Perhaps it is because I am not stopping to fill up my spiritual tank with the gas that it needs. My excuses tend to be I’m too tired, I can find something better to do with my time, blah, blah, blah. But eventually, I’m going to run out of steam and at some point will realize I need to STOP and fill up my tank again. Perhaps it would work out better if I filled that tank up on a regular basis just like I fill up my car tank.