Last week, I took my truck to a local tire dealer to have my tires rotated. I have done the tire rotation faithfully every 5,000 miles. My truck is twenty years old, so I’ve done these rotations faithfully for all of the 119,000 miles of the truck’s life. In this particular rotation, a problem was discovered.
As I waited for the technician to rotate my tires, he came out and asked if I would consider replacing my tires. He said I still had a bit of tread left but it had become thin. I was going to replace the tires before winter, so this wasn’t a total surprise. Between now and winter, without a replacement, I would be riding atop a potential problem.
The technician’s greatest concern was the cracks appearing on the sidewall of the tires. He then researched my tire history and was surprised by what he found. I had installed the tires 14 years ago! We both looked at each other in amazement. I then agreed to a full replacement of all my tires. My new tires were finally installed and off I went. As I drove home, I was amazed at how smooth my truck rode with new pliable tires, not the old, hardened ones.
As I normally do, I pondered the tire experience regarding my faith and the faith of others. The vibrancy of our faith can run for a long time on the old tires of a single experience from our past. We assume we have enough tread left to make it to life’s next destination. Maybe someone who was baptized in the Spirit 20 years ago ran on that experience without any future pursuit of the Spirit. Or someone who was once financially faithful to God in the beginning when their faith was hot and vibrant, now holds God’s blessings in a clinched fist out of a fear of loss. The list of issues that can thin our faith and make us spiritually brittle is long. Our spiritual life needs consistent evaluation to determine its viability.
I once took a seminary class on leadership that our missions agency paid for to help prepare Jan and me to become advisors in Europe. The class was taught by Dr. Bobby Clinton. After studying tens of thousands of leaders across all levels of leadership, Dr. Clinton concluded that only 30 percent of leaders finished well. Finishing well was boiled down to just two things – living in a grown intimacy with Jesus and making the ultimate contribution to God’s Kingdom which the Lord had created them to make. It wasn’t measured in success. It was measured by the content of their faith. Finishing well meant developing and preserving an ongoing intimacy with God and from that intimacy discovering our ultimate contribution.
Many believers are riding on balding anointings and brittle understandings of God’s nature. This condition came from extended use without personal renewal. Their intimacy and freshness of their faith had faded over time under the wear and tear of life without experiencing a renewing encounter with God.
Many of us need new tires upon which to carry our faith into the future. I have had four distinct Pentecost experiences over the last 50 years. Each one radically altered the course of my life. Intimacy with God and the spiritual hunger it creates, motivated me to contend for something new that would carry me into the future. Each experience of personal renewal was like installing a new set of spiritual tires. They ensured I would be empowered and protected to travel safely along the future roads of my journey of faith.
“Look, I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:5).
This is God talking to me through you. Thank the Lord for His faithfulness and your faithfulness to be vulnerable for Him to use as a vessel to help other.