When I look down at the gear shift area in my truck’s center console, the shift knob indicates several choices that will create motion. The only position that produces no movement is neutral. 

Perhaps my car’s transmission is a metaphor for life. Without engagement, we are left in a motionless state of neutrality. A lot of life can pass us by if we live in a neutral state. Shifting out of intellectual or spiritual neutral requires that we take time to read the road ahead to know what gear needs to be selected. Every road will present us with opposing opinions that will either challenge our neutrality or entrench us deeper in its illusion. Friendships or associations are jeopardized when we shift out of neutral. If we are going somewhere in our faith, we will need to engage a gear that takes us deeper into the important conversations of life, not just allow them to pass us by.

A lot of what we do as people of faith can resemble a muscle car with a large V8 and a heavy cam rumbling in neutral at the stoplight of culture but never engaging a gear and dropping the clutch. The world watches our potential demonstrated expecting more from us than just a great exhaust sound and a nice paint job. 

God is speaking new assignments to unlikely drivers. These new assignments will be given with clear instructions on what gear to select. The choices these drivers make will end seasons of neutrality on critical issues of faith and culture. When God has people speak in His name, offering honest dialogue and bringing righteous solutions to the table, those words and actions will bring about a transformation thought impossible before a new gear was engaged.  These reformers will leave behind a trail of burned spiritual rubber through the heart of culture, moving us forward toward a heaven on earth solution for the most painful issues we currently face.