I took my car in for maintenance today. I have been putting it off. Not a good idea with a car with over 100000 miles on it. I can’t afford a new one, and thanks to some debt restructuring I did a few months ago I owe a fair bit on it! So its a good idea if I stay on top of those things. And even if I did not owe on it, what a shabby way to treat what God has given me if I don’t properly maintenance it. Am I really being grateful? If He can’t really trust me in this little thing, can He trust me in much?
But I don’t. I let things go longer than I should on the car. I don’t take it in for every flashing sensor. I don’t have it in at 3 months 3 thousand miles. In fact I went 6000 miles this time. Its really rather dirty inside too, which produces interior wear. I don’t wash the bird doo off often enough, which means I am damaging the exterior. I follow other cars too close sometimes which makes me susceptible to flying rocks. I can’t remember the last time I had it in for a full service, or a coolant change. I don’t faithfully check the air in my tires or regularly check the oil level.
I know some of the guys out there have skins that are just crawling right now. Hearing stuff like that is like having finger nails dragged across a chalk board. You know that I am putting not only my car at stake with my dereliction of duty but actually others as well. An improperly maintenance car may actually put other people’s life and health at risk. “Shame on you, Pastor!” you may actually be thinking. Many of the effects of poor maintenance result in a slow degrade that is simply not reversible except at great expense. And that degrade is usually quite invisible!
Just so you know, I DID take it in for an oil change today, and they did the “20 point check” on it. So that is something right? Yeah, I know some of you guys are still shaking your heads.
But guess what? This is the blog of your “Spiritual Doctor.” So now that I have you roped in real nice, it is time to lower the boom on you. How are you doing on your “Soul maintenance?”
Regular maintenance on your car deals often time with a lot of “invisible” things that a person won’t notice until perhaps its too late. Soul maintenance is dealing with things that really are very much invisible, and the effect of poor maintenance is often far from overt. In fact it will be quite invisible to you, though others will probably notice the erosion first. And failure to do soul maintenance WILL result in catastrophic damage to yourself and to others around you.
Jackie can tell if I have not had a quiet time recently. I will get nasty (she might say, “Nastier”) and testy (the kids say “testier”). If I go a couple of days without soul maintenance, watch out! Usually by then, as obtuse as I am, I even begin to notice it. That usually happens at the end of the day as I am sitting haunted by the things which I have said and done.
An oil change is easy to forget because it happens once every few months. The disciplines of Bible reading, prayer and confession, service and worship are things that ought to be a part of our regular rhythm of life. Guys, you were unhappy with me “sinning against my car” by not maintenancing it. But are you daily reading the word and checking your life against it? Are you asking to be filled with the Holy Spirit, daily, and confessing your sins to God? Are you being God’s hands to others that desperately need His love? Are you making personal worship a daily habit and corporate worship a weekly practice? If not, watch out! Your soul might be running a little thin on the oil!
No comments:
Post a Comment