Your Check Engine Light is On

There is no chore I hate worse than pumping gas.

I’m really not sure why it bothers me so much.

Seriously, it’s two minutes out of the day.

What is the big deal?

Maybe it’s because it’s a chore I have to do.  It’s not something I can put off unless I want to find myself hiking up the highway in the middle of the night like that one time my dad ran out of gas a few miles from home.

“If you smell a skunk,” he told me, “run the other way.”

So yes, if you want to drive, if you want to get anywhere that’s too far to walk in the oppressive Florida sun—which is basically everywhere—then yes, you better keep that tank full.

When my dad ran out of gas that night years ago, on the way back from picking me up at college, he didn’t have one of those fancy gas gauges that cars have now.

My current car lets me know how many miles I have left until empty and when I reach thirty-five miles left, it commences with an end-of-the-world warning.

It has a similar end-of-the-world warning for low wiper fluid, which makes me think my car might be the boy-who-cried-wolf type. 

Really?  I say to the car.  How am I supposed to take you seriously when you whine over wiper fluid?

The truth is I love that my car tells me stuff.  I love that it tells me when the tires need filling, when the oil needs changing.  I love not having to stare at the tires and wonder if they look low or if that’s just my imagination.

I am thankful my car is so communicative.

I wish other things in my life were that helpful.

I wish my body would let me know first thing in the morning how much energy it had for the day.  It could give me a digital readout that said, “Sure you can walk those two miles at the Wetlands, but you should eat this-many-calories this morning with this breakdown of carbs and protein.  You will still need to follow that up with an hour nap this afternoon and an extra bottle of water for hydration.  Otherwise you won’t be able to move tomorrow.”

There’s probably an app for that.

We could probably all use some sort of warning system that our spiritual tanks are empty, too.

We can’t ignore the gas tank in the car.

We can’t ignore our food and water needs.

But somehow, our spiritual needs always seem to slip on by us, quietly waiting to be acknowledged.

It’s not that there aren’t warning signs. 

It’s that we’ve come to accept those warning signs as just another part of life.

Like in that episode of The Big Bang Theory when Sheldon points out to Penny that her “check engine” light is on.

And she replies, “It’s fine, it’s been on for like a month.”

In another episode when Leonard’s mother points out Penny’s “check engine” light is on, Penny replies, “Yeah, I gotta put a sticker over that.”

We get warnings all the time that our spiritual needs are at crisis levels.

We’re tired a lot, not just physically tired, but weary to the bones.

We feel like we’re walking around in a haze.

We complain about needing more sleep but sleep doesn’t help.

We’re angry.

We find ourselves wanting nothing more than to find a good wall to bang our heads on repeatedly throughout the day.

We wonder when we’ll ever be able to rest.

We wonder what resting really means.

But instead of stopping immediately, like we should with a “check engine” light, we keep on going, because none of those things seems like a crisis. 

Penny’s car still runs, so she ignores the light.  We can still move and eat and breathe, so we ignore the spiritual tap on the shoulder that God is sending to us.

The key is not to wait for the warning lights.

The key is to see to your spiritual needs daily.

Whether that means beginning the day in prayer or attending weekly Bible studies, or simply meeting with a friend for lunch and discussing meaning-of-life kind of things, we need to make caring for our spiritual selves a daily routine.

It’s why I walk every morning, not to burn calories, but to burn through the craziness of life, to let loose of all the little distractions, and turn my sight, at least for thirty minutes or so, to God.

It’s why I go to the Wetlands, why I got out of the car this morning and stepped lightly and slowly to where I had seen the mysterious bird (not a Sora after all, but a Virginia Rail) slipping through leaves and reeds yesterday.

And there it was, right out in the open, sitting still, waiting for me, framing its profile perfectly in the lighting as if it was the Barbra Streisand of birds and knew what side was its best side.

It’s why I took deep breaths after taking dozens of pictures and made sure to thank both bird and God for that moment.

I was filling my spiritual tank.

I wasn’t waiting until it got to empty.

I wasn’t waiting for the warning signs.

I was making sure to keep it filled, topped off, so to speak, as best I could.