Running on Empty

           

         

            Today I had one of those days.  You know the type….the days where nothing seems to go right.  I thought I had things under control…until the most embarrassing thing happened. 

            I ran out of gas.  Literally. 

            There I was, driving along and everything was going well.  Next thing I know, the car is sputtering and I am pulling over to the side of road…completely immobilized.  

            Of course, when this first happened…I didn’t realize I had run out of gas.  I ran through the myriad of issues for which I have had my truck towed in the last three months.  I was instantly hit with anger and the thought, “this can’t be happening to me!”  I have had to repair the breaks, the tires, the driveshaft, and the fuel pump all within the last year. I have towed this car more than any other car I’ve owned….or known about.  So I instantly thought that something was majorly wrong with it. 

            That was, until, somebody I was talking to reminded me that my fuel light had been on.  Of course my fuel light was on.  It’s almost always on.  I no sooner fill the car with gas the fuel light goes on.  I can go with days with my fuel light on.  And, in fact… I had gone days with the fuel light on.

            Oh.

            Then I realized….I had been driving for days with the fuel light on.  The time had finally come when it was completely out of gas.  I was stuck on the road…and there was nothing I could do about it. 

            I called the tow truck and waited for them to arrive.  I called my wife and my office to let them know what had happened.  I let the people who were waiting for me know what had happened as well.  And then I just…waited.

            As I waited, I began to think about my life.

That is NOT my car

            How often does this happen?  How often do I run out of gas.

            Now, to be honest, I have never actually run out of gas in my car…until today.  And I thought back to all the things that were going on in the last couple of days.  I can reason with myself that I was busy…I was too busy in fact.  I tried to pack too much into the last couple of days to make a quick stop at the gas station.  That lack of a trip to the gas station, messed up my schedule and the schedule of others.  I let myself down and I let others down…all because I was too busy to go to the gas station…to take care of my car.

            How many of us are running around on empty…spiritually…emotionally…mentally speaking? How many of us won’t…or can’t…make time to get some gas…to take some time and recharge.  We live in a go-go-go culture and society in which every waking moment has to be spent doing…something…even if that something really isn’t important. (watching Duck Dynasty is not all that important).  But we all have to be going.  And by going…we drain our fuel.

            And that’s the problem.  We try to go as hard as we can for as long as we can.  We take energy drinks rather than admit we need sleep.  We pay attention to our cellphones rather than talk to the people who are right next door to us.  We pretend we don’t need rest, to regroup, to recharge…and then we deny ourselves any chance to do so.  When we crash, we often crash hard, and we don’t need to.

            If only we would refill when we had the time.

            Isaiah talks about those who ‘wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and now grow weary.” (Isaiah 40:31)  Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Never growing weary? Never running out of gas? 

            Isaiah is referring to a number of things.  First, he is referring to the time when the Messiah will come and establish the kingdom of God.  At that point, those who wait will not grow weary (because weariness will not exist).  But he is also talking about one of the ways to renew ourselves. 

            We can be renewed by waiting for God…by cultivating our sense of God’s presence and coming.  We can do this by any number of spiritual practices.  We can fast, pray, read, study…sleep...(I’m of the opinion that sleep is a spiritual practice!)

            Or we can do this by taking care of ourselves.  Sometimes people spend too much attention on themselves (we call this selfishness), but often people don’t spend enough attention to themselves and they don’t attend to themselves.  After a while, this can result in all sorts of problems.

            Take for example any number of stressed out moms out there in Americaland.  They work hard at work…or work hard at home.  They take care of the kids and everything else and don’t take care of themselves very often.  They run far too long on far too little…and they burn out.  When they do, they are not very much good for anything else. 

            A common example can be cited (and I may have cited it before).  When you are going on an airplane, when the stewardess is going over the preflight information, they talk about the air tubes coming down.  It is always stressed to put your own tube on first before you help another person.  The same is true to life.

            As I watched all the cars going by today, in fast paces, trying to get to where they were going, I wondered how many of them were low on fuel, low on energy and about to crash.  We should all take some time to refuel so we don’t find ourselves immobile on the side of road called life.