Have you ever run out of gas while driving?  Thankfully, I haven’t; however, it became a possibility this week when we got in my car Sunday morning and it reeked of gas!  The 20-year-old fuel lines bit the dust overnight apparently.

I knew it was coming as the mechanic who fixed the brake lines that went out two months ago warned me the fuel lines would be next.  He also said he doesn’t replace fuel lines.  I called the mechanic in my hometown and he said they would rebuild them.  Actually, what he said was, “Anything can be fixed.”  Hallelujah!  My kind of guy.

I called him back yesterday to schedule an appointment and asked if it was safe to drive the car still, since he is an hour away from me.  He said yes, but maybe not on a long trip.  “You don’t want gas spraying out behind you.”  Indeed.

I can just see that – driving 70 mph down the highway to get my car fixed and it starts spraying gas at the cars racing behind me.  Not real safe or real kind.  So, fingers crossed.

We were all outside yesterday doing yardwork (with the occasional waft of gas hitting us as the car is parked on the driveway for now) when a neighbor came over to the fence to talk.  One of his children has been dealing with a severe health issue for 10 months and he had an update for us.  But most of the conversation ended up being about God and prayer. 

My neighbor said he used to think he talked to God a lot; now, however, he said, he talks to God all the time, all day long (I could relate).  And wondered recently to a friend why God wasn’t responding (ditto).

His friend told him to stop talking and to just listen.  My neighbor listens to the local Christian music station which was playing as he went back to the construction project he is working on.  He told us yesterday that the next three songs he had heard all had the theme of God holding him – my neighbor even cupped his hands together as he said that, like you would hold a small kitten.  The way God told his heart God was holding him. 

If he hadn’t been listening, he would have missed that message.

I woke up with lyrics in my head recently (yes, again) and the lyrics were “be kind.”  So, figuring this was a message to me, I asked God to help me be kind that day.  I even have a reminder set on my phone that pops up Proverbs 31:26:

the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

Boy, I wish I could actually live like that.  I commonly pray for the strength to be kinder than I am, when I’m exhausted and short-tempered instead.

My neighbor also said yesterday that he has started telling God to just take it all, all of the fear and anxiety.  To help him just let go.  Again, he used his body to demonstrate this groaning of his soul: he stretched out his arms wide, in full surrender.  Like Jesus did on the cross.

And I woke up this morning not with lyrics but with the thought that the problem is we honestly just can’t let go of our human emotions and frailties, even when we really, really want to.

The morning I asked God to help me be kind, I also read a social media post:

“Like so many of the hardships in life, it is only in hindsight that we realize the hidden hand of God at work in our deepest woes.  He is not making us stronger but is making us dead, that we might truly live in the strength that he provides.”

Chad Bird, “Divorce“

It isn’t “make me stronger so I can be kind,” but “get me out of the way because I just can’t do it.”  Only He can be kind, through me.

I realized I need to open my arms wide, stop trying on my own to white knuckle being kind, and let Him fill me.  Each morning.  Really, all day long.  Maybe I need to talk less and listen more.  Which led me back to my dying car.

If I never stop to fill it with gas, it will run out, even once the fuel lines are fixed. 

If I never stop to let God fill me, I will run out.

Ahhh, I need to stop regularly to fill up.

Today, I decided, I will stop each hour for a few minutes to listen to a song or a short meditation or just the birds in the backyard.  To slow down long enough to listen to God and let Him fill me up, before I go running off to battle the next trial in my day, foolishly telling Him what He needs to do to help me.

If I’m talking to God fifty-seven minutes of each hour, I figure the least I can do is be quiet for the three minutes it takes to listen to a song.  Three minutes to be filled with him – with HIS kindness.  Because mine is running on empty.