My Bone Dry Car

I’m not a car guy. At all. Not that I had tricked any of you into thinking otherwise. One look at my car is all it really takes to come to that conclusion. But here’s a bit more evidence.

For the last four months or so, my little beater of a car (an ’08 Hyundai Accent) has become increasingly noisy. First it was a ticking or whirring of some kind. Soon after that, revving the engine began to give off strong jet-engine vibes. Meanwhile, the car became more and more sluggish. I was doing 0 to 60 in 2 minutes flat, that kind of thing. Then, finally, came the grinding. At that point, I figured ok, this car has taken me as far as it can. It’s probably done. That was my expert opinion. But I decided to call my mechanic, get a second opinion, and see if he could do anything about it.

I tell him the sounds the car is making. This is where my car ignorance always becomes extremely embarrassing, as I’m trying to imitate car sounds and identifying the source of them as “somewhere in the front of the car.” My mechanic bears with me patiently for a moment and then asks, have you checked the oil? I scoff at this. Did you hear all the sounds I so proficiently described for you? As if it would be as simple as the oil! He tells me that for 50 years, he has seen thousands of vehicles that just needed an oil top-up. I concede to his superior knowledge and tell him I would check the oil before bringing it in.

I don’t check my oil often (that’s actually a generous description of the frequency). In other words, I couldn’t be sure what I was looking at, but it didn’t seem like the dipstick was registering any level of oil. Bone dry, in fact. In a stunning achievement of basic maintenance, I figured out how to pour a litre and a half of oil in. 

The next time I drove the car…how do I explain it? It was magic. I felt like I was driving a Tesla. Seriously. The car sounded so smooth, so quiet. I was back to doing 0 to 60 in one minute instead of two. My thoughts went from “how can I get rid of this thing” to “I will drive this car until I die”. I have rarely experienced so dramatic a transformation in a situation in such a short period of time. 

There’s a song that I remember singing while growing up in Sunday school in the ‘90s. Here’s the line: “give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning for the Lord, give me oil in my lamp, I pray.” What is this oil? Biblically, oil is associated with the Holy Spirit. In Zechariah 4, we receive an image of a lamp stand connected to olive trees, which are supplying the oil for those lamps. When Zechariah asks about the meaning of this, an angel tells him, “not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit”. The oil of the Spirit is what keeps the lamps burning. Oil was also commonly used to anoint God’s servants, to mark them out as His people set apart for a task. In Isaiah 61, we read the prophet proclaiming that the Spirit had anointed him to proclaim good news. The Spirit is the anointing oil in our lives.

Obviously, the oil in those passages is different from the motor oil my car desperately needed. But you can see the connection. Our desperate need is to be filled with the Holy Spirit- to be continually topped up with the indwelling presence of God. That’s what Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:18. When we neglect that, all kinds of symptoms begin to emerge. We become very noisy. We don’t move as we should. Things get clogged up and stifled in our hearts. We might think the issues lie in all kinds of other places. We might think it’s time to get rid of this whole Christian life altogether. Sometimes, however, the issue might simply be that we’ve neglected the oil of the Holy Spirit and have relied too much on our own strength and wisdom.

I don’t know if it’s a coincidence that I had this experience last week, during our 24/7 prayer week. During that week, I was able to spend more time in prayer and worship than I have in quite a while. And through that, God revealed all kinds of things to me about some of the struggles in my life, and gave me what I need to go forward. I got some badly-needed oil poured into me.

May you be filled with the Holy Spirit. May you receive this as you’re devoted to the Word, to prayer, and to fellowship with other believers. May you seek Him with all your heart and receive all that He has to give you. Your metaphorical engine will thank you for it.