Driving on Empty

If you know me very well at all, you are probably aware of the fact that I drive a Volkswagen Jetta that is constantly falling apart. By constantly I mean constantly. There are very few exceptions to this.

The latest chapter in the novel of my car problems has been a radiator/coolant leak, and just so you know, I am now 300% more knowledgeable about automotive cooling systems than I previously was.

Silver lining.

To a cloud I don't want to talk about, which involved freezing at a gas station staring under the hood of my car in the dark freaking out.

Anyway, the point is that while my dad has been faithfully and selflessly repairing my Jetta in his garage for the past month, I've been borrowing a red Lumina which runs very well yet has problems all its own. Such as the cup holder being held together with duck tape. And I don't think the car horn works. Etcetera.

I'm so blessed to have this car so I don't have to walk everywhere in January. So don't get me wrong, I love the red Lumina. But there's one thing about it I don't love: the gas gauge.

Broken. It will tell me I have a half tank of gas one day, and the next day I'm on empty. I thought it had really bad gas mileage for a while, but then I figured out I could drive for a week or two on "empty," so I've been doing that. I'm sure I'll regret it when I putter to a stop one day having truly run out of gas, but life is an adventure. Ride with me sometime and maybe you'll get to experience that.

Yesterday I realized I'd been on empty for quite a while, so I decided to get gas. Except I was late to church so I couldn't. Then I was late to babysitting after, so I still couldn't. I seriously turned off my music both times and just prayed that the Lord would send some angels to carry my car to its destination if it was about to choke.

And you know what I realized?

I see God's love that way sometimes.

Or, I act like I do. I act like God's love has a faulty gauge, and even though I'm getting a reading, it's probably wrong. I act like I never know exactly how much is left, because I could probably go another 3 days on what I've got, but you never can tell with these things.

It kinda goes back to what I said in that post on Plan A. Sometimes I function like I need to batten down the hatches, steel myself for the second-best stuff coming my way. I think God loves me enough to give me grace in some areas of life, like salvation and the big things, but he doesn't care very much if I get stuck in a dead-end job or hate the city I live in. It's like I think I have some of God's love, but I can't tell how much, or when it's about to run out on me and force me to handle things on my own, on the side of the road.

Does God love us enough to break the addictions, correct the faulty thinking, destroy perfectionism and anxiety and obsessions? Does he love us enough to give us abundant life and freedom? Or does his love for some of us stop at the salvation of our souls? This is the fundamental question I am answering when I choose to see it like a faulty gas gauge. And I'm answering it the wrong way.

Nowhere in scripture is salvation seen as only a change of destination for the soul. Nowhere in scripture does God say he wants to give someone grace but only enough for them to go to heaven, not enough to actually change their life on earth. Salvation, you see, is always a holistic incident, a holistic process of change and regeneration of entire humans. God's love always extends past the basics and through the messy everydayness, to touch the things we didn't think it could. God's love is never going to stop short of that secret we hide, the things that always get the best of us. God's love is never going to run out just because we make an error in judgement, choose sin again, or avoid church a few more Sundays. And it definitely isn't going to run out "any minute now," "when you least expect it," or "when you've been driving on empty too long."

In many ways I just need to say this to convince myself. It's a continuation of "Disbelieving Scarcity" or "Plan A," maybe. And it's a confession of my unbelief, which says unwittingly that Jesus can't speak to some of my problems because that's not his department. His love isn't going to leave me stranded, and it's not going to leave before I'm 100% new and changed, before the Kingdom comes to earth through those of us who take his name. The gas tank is full. And one day there won't even be a gas tank, because Jesus will be right in front of me, and I won't ever doubt his love again.