Running on empty

19 January 2021

Sometimes being stopped in our tracks is just what we need

Words Rebecca Moore

It was a busy school morning. I managed to get my four children out the door but with only minutes to spare. As we all bundled into the car, I turned the engine on only to have the petrol light appear on my dashboard! The petrol was low – it was very low.

I had two choices. I could stop on the way to school to get petrol, but this would mean the kids would be running late. Or, I could take the risk and drive straight to the school and hope there would be enough petrol to get me there and back.

Time was running short. As I approached a fork in the road, I decided to go left and head straight to the school. We’d had enough late slips in the past, and today was not going to be another one.

We arrived just on time. Breathing a sigh of relief, I waved the children off with a cheesy mum smile and drove out of the school car park, giving myself a mental pat on the back. The thought crossed my mind: “Best mum ever!”

As I performed a U-turn to head back to the motorway, something happened. My car stopped midway, leaving me stranded diagonally across the right-hand lane on the bend of a road. “This is awkward,” I thought.

As I retrieved my phone to call my husband, some nice people in a car pulled over to help me. Together, we pushed my car to the side of the road and out of harm’s way. Not long after that, my hero-husband arrived with enough petrol to get me to the nearest petrol station.

Sometimes we think we can make it – but on what fuel?

As relieved as I was that the children made it to school on time, I didn’t have what I needed to get where I was going. We often think we can make it in our own strength, but when it comes down to it, that will only get us so far. The warning signs were there, and there was a solution that would see me last the distance, but I ignored it and suffered the consequences.

Occasionally in life we push things to the limit when we should, and do, know better. I should have been better prepared. I should have refuelled when the warning light first appeared on my dashboard the day before. I should have pushed the kids out the door 20 minutes earlier. I should have … I should have …

There are many things we should have done, and in hindsight it all makes perfect sense. But, in the moment, we’re pushed for time, we’re distracted by circumstances and we’re focused on other things.

LIVING WATER

In the Bible, in John chapter 4, we read about a Samaritan woman who had spent years running from one relationship to another. Rejected by others because of her lifestyle, she collected water from the well at noon, 

FAITH TALK

most likely because not many people would be there at that time. Jesus met her at the well and asked her to pour him a drink.

As it was not appropriate for Jews to associate with Samaritans, she questioned this request. He responded: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (verse 10).

Jesus goes on to explain in verses 13-14: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

This woman’s life was changed from that moment on. It doesn’t matter who we are or what we’ve done, this living water that Jesus offers is for everyone who will take from it.

Sometimes, Jesus can be standing right in front of us, offering springs of living water, and we don’t realise it. We keep going in our own strength, becoming weary until we stop midway in our path, and all along Jesus is asking us to stop and let him give us rest.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew chapter 11, verse 28).

While it was awkward running out of fuel during a U-turn, it could have been a lot worse. God is always looking out for us, and sometimes stopping us in our tracks is exactly what we need.

Rebecca Moore is a writer who blogs at rebeccamoore.life. She is the author of First to Forty and Pizza and Choir. Reprinted with permission.