You know how it feels when your car suddenly starts having weird little hiccups? It doesn’t seem like anything serious, but it’s just enough outside the norm that you can sense something may be happening. You hope you’re wrong, but you’re pretty sure you’re not.
Well… that happened to me this week.
It had been a while since I’d driven my car. I work from home, so I don’t always need to, and on my way to meet a friend for lunch, I’m literally sitting at a stoplight when the car gives this little hitch. Almost like a hiccup. And in the back of my mind I’m thinking, “Oh no. Surely not. That cannot be anything major.”
Something Wasn’t Right
I tried to convince myself maybe the gas I put in last time wasn’t great quality. Well… no. Not so much.
Today, as I was out for an appointment, the hitching and hiccupping was definitely worse. By the time I got to my appointment — which is roughly half an hour away — I was honestly nervous about the idea of having to drive back home. I didn’t know what was wrong, although I had a suspicion (which I’ll get into in a minute).
My appointment went well. I headed back to the car, sat down, turned on the engine, and… yeah. It was not a happy camper. But I didn’t really have a choice. I needed to get home. So I got on the interstate and found that the long, uninterrupted stretch of road was way better than the stops I knew were coming when I exited onto one of the main streets in my city.
Just Get Me Home
It felt like I hit every single red light. And at every red light, the car would hitch a little more, hiccupping as if it were coughing and just begging for some help. I was literally patting the steering wheel, pleading with it: “Please just hold on, Aslan. Just hold on a little bit longer.” (That’s the name of my car . . . Aslan, from The Chronicles of Narnia.)
Much to my relief, I made it home safely and gave the engine a few hours to cool down. It had been running hot, so I couldn’t immediately get in there to see what was wrong. Later that afternoon, I popped the hood to check the oils and liquids and… sure enough. The engine oil was at the low level . . . honestly, probably lower than low. And the coolant? Yeah. That was a horrible level too.
Under the Hood
What had happened was simple: I had not been doing my due diligence. I wasn’t checking the important things that keep the engine running smoothly. I had put it on the back burner and forgot about it . . . until suddenly there was a symptom that something was seriously wrong.
And it is much the same in my own walk with the Lord.
It Felt Familiar
It is so easy to go along thinking everything is smooth. Life is going well. No major issues. Meanwhile, under the surface, you are slowly running out of the necessities that actually keep you going. As a Christian, what keeps us going is our walk with the Lord. I had allowed my levels of faith, my trust in Him, my church attendance, my Scripture reading, even just being intentional in my walk to get dangerously low. To the point where my life was hiccupping and coughing.
That is such a scary place to be.
But the lesson here is that it’s up to the Christian to catch those symptoms before the engine dies. I don’t really believe in backsliding in the sense of losing salvation. Once you have accepted Christ, that’s settled. But I do think you can fall back into old habits and old patterns. You can start focusing more on the things of the world, how to get through life with comfort and ease, instead of focusing on serving the Lord to the best of your ability and not being ashamed to declare it.
That’s how you take care of your engine.
The Slow Kind of Neglect
With my car, I finally gave it the oils and liquids it needed, and it’s running fine. I caught it before real damage was done but honestly, I should’ve been checking it all along. And it’s the same with my walk. I need regular heart checks as a believer, to be in constant communion with the Lord, and to recover that sense of reverence He deserves simply for being who He is as the Creator, my Father in heaven. There is an awe He is owed for that alone.
But it is so easy to let my personal judgment get clouded by the things of this world. Entertainment. Social media. Hobbies. Friend groups. And yes, those temptations and addictions many of us struggle with in different ways.
I sincerely believe Christians experience that little hiccup in our hearts or minds . . . that gentle nudge saying, “Something isn’t right. You need to get right with the Lord.”
Listening to that hiccup has been one of the most illuminating and beneficial experiences of my life. The last several years have held some very difficult circumstances in my private life, and not everything I did during that time was spiritually nurturing and beneficial. But eventually, I started listening to the sounds my engine was making. I began making adjustments and actually treating the symptoms.
My faith now is not shaken, even though new circumstances have arrived, right on schedule. If anything, I’ve realized the journey of the last almost three years has been solely for me to grow closer to the Lord. The hardships, the pain, the anger, the betrayal . . . none of it actually matters in the end, because the heart of it is this: God used it all to get my attention.
And as strange as it may sound, it has become the most important realization of my life. Even though these years have been hard and I haven’t always responded perfectly, I still wouldn’t trade them. Because now my walk with the Lord is back on track. The oil and coolant are where they should be.
And my life, so long as I keep fueling it up with God, is running just fine.