Running on Empty – the new normal
On Friday afternoon, I was driving home from Hanham to Winscombe. The journey to Hanham earlier had been increasingly fraught. I thought I’d set off in good time, but was 30 minutes late arriving...another story. I hate being late.
I decided to take the country route back to avoid the traffic. At the back of my mind were the last-minute preparations needed before the neighbours were due to arrive for Christmas drinks.
On the way to Hanham, the car had already beeped at me; its petrol gauge bouncing into the red. On the way back, my mind was elsewhere, thinking about the evening, and I was enjoying the country route. At some point, somewhere deep within a small voice, not the beep, started talking. It had three things to say:
1. You’re going the wrong way
2. Look at the petrol gauge
3. Look at your phone
Stress rising, I found a small road I could pull into. Phone on 1%. Diesel had been right at the bottom for a few miles by that time. And, my 1% phone satnav map confirmed I was heading East, not West.
My mind and my spirit were not enjoying their antagonistic conversation. My mind was filing through various disaster scenarios, rescue phone calls, asking whether I had a petrol can, preparing me for the worst. My spirit, on the other hand, was calling on God. That familiar feeling of utter dependency, black humour, feeling very silly and vulnerable, and yet knowing this, occasionally, is the path we unwittingly must take…and I had.
Hooking up an older Satnav, not my 1% phone version, I headed in the right direction. Less than a quarter of a mile up the road, a petrol station, appeared. It felt like manna from heaven, as if it had just been built and downloaded to the planet for me! All that worry, self-recrimination, apologising to the Almighty, calling on Him for mercy…now joy, relief. And £30.00 never so joyfully spent!
A story to tell for the blog? Maybe.
A parable? Most certainly, yes.
We make a terrible mistake if we absorb too readily the ‘Hollywood Jesus’ whose clothes are slightly better quality than those worn by the others around him. Or he’s a tad taller. Or more handsome, his beard trimmed that bit closer than Peter’s. Hollywood Jesus has secret powers of healing, deliverance, and raising the dead, quite apart from his sheer courage, and unblinking blue eyes. The epitome of Zen-calm, He is a hero, facing down death and escaping from the tomb.
That’s a false image. The New Testament has a radically different perspective:
‘Christ Jesus…being in the form of God…emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men’ Philip 2 v 5-7
Jesus ran on empty.
I suspect he knew this in a deeper and fuller way than any of us can imagine. I had a taste of it in the car. A reminder that self-sufficiency is a form of delusion. And a glimpse of new light shed some on the subject.
Coming out of the Covid pandemic, there was much talk of a ‘new normal’.
Running on empty is the new normal.
It is our position in Christ if we are a Christian believer.
It is the Sermon on the Mount in real life, not an ideal that is just out of reach.
To paraphrase: ‘Blessed are the empty, they shall be filled’.
Jesus ran on empty
This is what Jesus modelled for us. Empty yet filled. The words of the parables, the power to heal, the courage to face opposition, the triumph over the grave – none of this came from His fullness, His ability. He had no secret power; it all came from the One who filled Him.
We yield any remaining thought that we are in control. We are called to faith, not self-sufficiency. We lean not on our own understanding but trust in the Lord with all our heart. We have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. The life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me. We are dependent on God, who revealed ‘His Son in me’ to Paul.
God does not require us to be full. To be clever. To be successful emotionally or economically. He does not require a cv to give us a task. God knows a secret. The secret His Son Jesus demonstrated to the world: we are designed to run on empty. All day. Every day.
Jesus said, ‘Freely, freely you have received, freely give’.
This is not a self-help wisdom from a spiritual guru. He emptied Himself and was filled by God. He received freely, and He gave freely. This is our calling.
Of course, I can laugh at myself. My incompetence. My inattention. Even the word ‘My’.
That small voice is still speaking:
1. You’re going the wrong way – the opposite direction, in fact
2. Look at the petrol gauge
3. Look at your phone
In other words, He calls us back to ‘emptiness’, which is the right direction, not depending on our own abilities. Our fuel gauges are in good health if the needle is on empty. And my phone? It represents you spirit, the origin of that small inner voice, built for two-way conversations, my heavenly Father to me, His son, and from me to my Heavenly Father.