Stuck

this car is going nowhere

Because of the work I do, I make it a habit to always be on the lookout for things around me that I can use to illustrate spiritual principles. It’s my achiles heel, but comes in handy when I need an illustration!

This car has a story to tell. I walk by it, typically, at least once a week. The funny thing is that I have been doing so for about 4 years now!

Here’s the story: This car has actually been in this spot as long as I can remember. About 4 years ago, however, the building that I am standing beside as I take the photograph was being constructed. For some reason, whoever owned this car never bothered to move it. There were bright stickers placed on it, clamps, notes; anything and everything to warn the owner to move it or else. I would love to know why, but the owner never did anything about it.

Now here’s the amusing part: rather than remove the car, the workers who constructed the new building and the road beside it simply did so with the car still there! I guess they couldn’t be bothered with picking up the phone and calling a tow truck. What was left was a once fine running car rendered useless as the road was built up around it. As you can see from the picture it is, literally, hemmed in from every side. I don’t know if it could be removed now even if someone wanted to. So there it sits, exposed to the elements, windows broken out…stuck.

As I think about my life in Christ, I am reminded that there are times where I flirt dangerously close to things that could potentially be quite dangerous for me. Maybe you like to flirt with lines, looking to see how close to them you can drift without going over, only to wake up one day so far past the line that you don’t even remember crossing it. You’re stuck. And the longer you stay there stuck, the more destructive it becomes.

Well, the good news is that, while we can’t unstick ourselves, there is One who can. God desires to reach in and pull us out. God’s heart is to make old, broken ikons new.

I often wonder if there will ever come a day when I walk down that road and no longer see that old stuck car. I wonder the same for some of my friends who are stuck in destructive patterns of living. I guess, for the latter, I can only pray and hope.

 

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