Tell me this is completely crazy. I mean, clearly nobody would do this.

Imagine that someone drove their car all over town for a few days. They went to the beach, went to a few stores, stopped home, and picked up some friends. They went out to eat, drove to church, and even got stuck in traffic at some point. The car drove well, the AC worked, and the soundsystem was great. The only problem was the gas tank. You see, each time the vehicle was used, the tank became less full. Eventually, the vehicle was past the “Empty” level, and as a result the vehicle had to be driven home and parked in the driveway.

What should happen next? Someone else is clearly responsible for the driver’s own bad decisions, right? The driver could start venting on social media, I guess. Firing off tweets about how great “full tank life” used to be. Old photos of “full tank and me” could start flooding Instamatic and Facebook. Maybe even a blog could be created about why it isn’t fair that the car doesn’t run on an empty tank. Bitterness could set in. After all, God can do anything… why isn’t He making the vehicle run? Why does He force us to fill gas tanks? How can a God who loves people let the gas run out? Why didn’t the church fill my tank for me? The pastors and people at the church should share the blame. The government could be blamed. The president should do something about this, right? Big corporations are forcing us to buy gas, right? Parks could be occupied, streets could be marched on, protest signs could be painted and attached to poles.

Or, the driver could invest a bit in a full tank of gas. The idea could be embraced that when the tank approaches the “half full” mark, a short drive to a local gas station is made and some money is spent to make sure the fuel never gets close to empty. No blame then needs to be given, no blogs, photos, tweets, or bitterness. Just all the same driving in the vehicle with a perpetual process of refueling.

I mean, this is crazy, right? Who would do this? This story makes no sense! Who would push themselves to the point of exhaustion, emptiness, and even despair and then not understand how they got there? Nobody would ever live that way. Especially followers of Christ… right?

Followers of Christ would never go through life without constantly refueling in the Word, investing time in prayer, and following God in obedience with other believers. There’s no way anyone would do that. I mean, why would anyone expect to live in a way that experiences the fullness of Christ without investing time into God’s presence? Nobody who reads this blog would ever just go through life day after day trusting their own logic, wisdom, and strength to experience all there is in this life. And a Christian would never view the call Jesus gave each of us to “Make Disciples” in a way that excluded filling ourselves with God’s word, prayer, and a community of believers to follow Him together?

You probably know someone else who needs to read this. Of course it isn’t you. I mean, who would do this?