Viscosity

It’s 6:00 AM and you hear something at your door. You wait in anticipation as your door begins to squeak open slowly. As the door opens wider, your whole family is exposed crouching behind the door attempting to be undetectable. The sight brings a smile to your face when you begin to wonder why your family is crowded together trying to squeeze into your room all at the same time. Finally, the surprise is unveiled as they all shout from the top of their lungs, “Happy Birthday!” The shout jolts your memory and you begin to put all the pieces together. It is true, today is your birthday. In fact today is not just any birthday; it is your 16th birthday.  It’s your “Sweet Sixteen” birthday and you realize that the phrase, “Sweet Sixteen,” is the phrase you have spent the last four months dreaming about. It is actually the phrase every student fantasizes about hearing or better stated, the phrase that every student fantasizes about experiencing. It is the day when your first thick cord tying your parents to you is cut, and the birth of raw authentic enthusiasm begins secreting itself from every one of your pores.  It leaves you in an impossible state to accomplish anything non-driver related. This excitement that you are experiencing is so intense that your parents have decided to pull you out of school early today hoping that a “self-portraited” plastic card will sober you and usher in a return to normal behavior. However, your parents discover that rather than a sobering effect, a Driver’s License initiated an animalistic outburst in you similar to a kennel’s reaction when “the new dog” is dropped off for the weekend. This experience is one that you will never forget. Since you are like most people, rather than forgetting your 16th birthday, you will use it like a ruler determining how all other birthdays measure up.  With the inauguration of freedom comes a launch of real responsibility. Now that the state has declared you ready to operate a vehicle, all of the responsibilities to successfully do so have been placed in your lap like a stack of neatly folded clean laundry. The second you wrap your hand around the keys of your own vehicle, is the second that many things can go wrong. However, you can reduce the chances of things going wrong if you will commit to take care of a few essential maintenance tips. Although there are many precautions and steps you should take to insure your vehicle’s operation, today please focus on just one. Let’s take a look at the oil change.  Fortunately for all drivers, car manufacturers have simplified the oil change with the number 3000. It is recommended that cars get their oil changed every 3000 miles, or every three months, which ever comes first.  This is a very simple and straightforward recommendation; however, many drivers have extreme difficulty following this guideline. For a number of reasons ranging from laziness to a lack of money, people ignore the oil change as long as they possibly can. The oil change is ignored because it is seen as seemingly insignificant. Is it really that important? Let’s think about it; as long as the engine has oil and is operating properly, is it really that important to constantly get the oil changed? The oil change has been misunderstood for years always receiving neglect despite its importance. The oil change is actually one of the most important components in extending the life of a vehicle. It is important because the oil in the engine gets dirty with use, causing the oil filter to no longer function properly by getting clogged with all kinds of impurities. The oil filter remains clogged like a shower drain strangled by long hair until it is replaced, which is part of the process of an oil change. This process of removing the impurities in a vehicle’s oil is so important that little stickers are put in the corner of every vehicle reminding all drivers of when their vehicles are due for an oil change. These stickers have proven to be invaluable because they eliminate the guess work of when the next oil change is needed. Even if you were to forget when your vehicle reached the 3000 mile mark from your last oil change, the only action needed to find the answer is a quick glance up to the corner of your windshield. Basically, there are no excuses that would pardon anyone for not getting his/her oil changed regularly since these stickers can be found in the corner of every windshield all across the nation.  Not only are oil changes important for your cars, but they also can become spiritual moments. That’s right; an oil change can be a spiritual moment. When you think about how important the oil change is to the life of a vehicle, it raises an extremely valid question about our own lives. How often do we need a change? How often does God want to change our lives? When I think about this question it makes me wonder how many lives would be different if they applied the diligence for changing their oil to the changes that God wants to make in them. How many of us would be different if we would put little stickers in our lives to remind us of when we last allowed God to change a part of us that had become impure?  So many times we walk around dirty, full of all kinds of impurities and we forget that it has been a long time since God changed something in our lives. We ignore the need to be changed much like people do when it comes to changing their oil. Many times we know we need a change, but we ignore the Holy Spirit’s prompting and go on with our lives neglecting the needed change.  The Bible says this about our need for change. “The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict.” (Gal. 5:17 NLT emphasis added) In other words, we have to be very careful living our everyday lives making everyday decisions, and experiencing everyday situations. We must be careful because if we live trusting our impulses, our intuition, and our instincts then many times we are choosing to do evil without even knowing it. Our lives get dirty with use. Just like oil in an engine, we accumulate impurities from our culture, our entertainment, and our world that so aggressively rejects God. Vehicles are predictable. They need a change every 3000 miles, but people, not as predictable, sometimes need to be changed every few miles. However, instead of allowing change to happen, we ignore the need and go thousands of miles beyond what the sticker shows accumulating an increasing amount of impurities, causing the decision to obey God to become more and more difficult and clouded.  What happens when the oil in an engine is continuously changed too late?  Are there consequences for continual neglect? The life of an engine is dramatically shortened when properly timed oil changes are absent. When the oil in an engine is constantly dirty becoming increasingly thicker, the engine must work extra hard enduring added stress caused by the impurities present in the oil.  This shortens the life of the engine. The same is true in faith.  If we continuously ignore the need for God to change us, the life of our faith is shortened. When change is ignored it becomes easy to experience burn out in faith and to accumulate negative feelings toward God and his desire to purge impurities from our lives.  God desperately wants us to avoid this tragedy. He has given us the Holy Spirit to remind us and prompt us of when we need to be changed much like the sticker does for the oil change. It is almost possible to hear God’s voice speaking through the Holy Spirit declaring this warning, “Don't wait too long! Don’t ignore your need to be purified because I don’t want you to get burned out in your faith and become calloused to my voice.”  Remember when the last change took place and realize that a relationship with God requires more than just one change. In fact, a journey with God is defined by the changes that God is allowed to make in our lives on a daily basis.  When the words, “Happy Sweet Sixteen,” become a reality and all the responsibility of that phrase begins to perpetuate in life, allow God to reveal himself through the new experiences that are now part of your everyday life. Understand that the changes God wants to do in your life are not something to be feared, to be ignored, or to be underappreciated. Instead embrace the changes God makes and comprehend the need of these changes to take place. Allow your spiritual engine to operate efficiently and free from burn out by allowing God to clean out your filter regularly.