Oil Changes

Today was one of those mornings that I now realize, is such a luxury in my life. You know, the kind where you do not have to set the alarm to wake up and immediately head off somewhere, but can instead get up feeling truly rested and yet at a time still early enough where you feel the whole day is in front of you. It is the kind of morning where as soon as you leave the heated covers, you slip into a sweatshirt as quickly as possible because the air in the house that you have not yet given into heating is a just a little too chilly to handle. The type of “let’s go get bagels” morning with your husband who just threw on his hat you love. The kind when you relish two cups of coffee in between putting the sheets in the laundry. It’s the kind of morning when I can sit down at my table and meditate on the last six or so days of devotions, because I do not have a list of activities and projects taking over my brain; I can go back and let their messages sink in on a deeper level.

For me, writing down, by hand, into my journal, excerpts of someone’s writing or verses that hit me hard are a powerful way of letting my mind actually dwell on truth and meditate on it in a way that is very different than when I just read it. Reading something and praying is no doubt extremely necessary and transformational in my day to day, but re-writing something, letter by letter, helps me reach an even deeper level of wrestling with a text. But, it is more time-consuming to do that and so sometimes it will be several days, sometimes weeks, or the worst, months, before I can really sit, go back, pick out, and transcribe those excerpts. So whenever I do get to, I am shocked by how greatly it affects me.

It truly feels like I am feeding a part of my soul that can only receive its essential nutrition in a slower, more extended process… It’s like there is a deeper, buried reserve, that holds my foundational fuel, that sustains me through many days of inconsistent top level fueling. But when it needs to be refilled, you can only get to that lower tank by spending a longer time with God.

Oil changes take a little longer than just topping off the fuel of your car, but nevertheless are necessary maintenance in order for your car to function day to day, and in the same way, I imagine God needing more time to penetrate through and assess, clean, and refill that lower tank again, fully, so that we have it for the next series of days. It is not a drive up, receive, and drive off process. God needs us to give Him the time. I picture Him waiting for me to finally pull in, park, and get out of the driver’s seat and go wait, so that He can fully work, and then smiling as I get back in and realize it truly does sound and feel smoother.

The difference I think, is that I need this tune up far more often than my car needs oil changes. I’m just so thankful I am finally realizing that.

Jesus consistently modeled this behavior. When I read through His life, I see times of solitude and stillness spliced between the stories of Him speaking and serving. He balanced the business and demands that came from constantly interacting with people by creating and carving out time with His Father. The authors included those details…that means it was noticeable, that it was important, that it mattered. In fact, the greatest suffering, anguish and pain in all of Jesus’ life is directly preceded by the most pronounced and explicit example of Jesus seeking time with God: His time in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I always finish a session of re-writing and I realize wow… there is something deep, deep inside that has been satisfied and re-clarifies my perspective on a foundational level. It is during those times that God does not just give truths that will stay in my head for the next 24 hours like those boppy songs that for some reason get stuck in your head for the day, but rather gives me truths that are going to be playing over and over again for weeks to come.

This morning was one of those “deep oil changes” and man, I was way overdue.

#time #writing