JEHOVAH FIRE, GOD MY SPARE TIRE

What’s inside: Is the Lord your God waiting in the wings of your life? Is He the sixth man off the bench watching to see if you’ll put Him in just as things start to go south? Well, this Spoiled By God weekend read is just for you.

When I first took interest in God, I was drawn by the many things I felt I could get out of the relationship. Being a Christian was a notch on my belt. It believed that being a Christian would make me likable, more desirable, increase my value, upgrade me. Spending time with God meant that I would have access to mystical powers: my days would go perfectly, my plans would succeed, I could sense trouble coming, I would have what I wanted and life would be smooth. It was all about what I expected to get for my efforts. Even fulfilling God’s will was about me. In one way or another I expected to get what I want.

As I got older, I realized how much my relationship with God was actually about me using Him instead of the other way around. I’d spent my youth doing all the things that I believed He expected from me and when I became an adult, I was ready to collect. I thought and thought about what I needed to do to move God to perform on my behalf. What I truly desired to master was the art of manipulating God. When my efforts were unsuccessful, meaning I was not getting the answers to my prayers, I distanced myself. Yet I still wanted to maintain some level of connection. I still needed to be able to cry out to Him in an emergency and not feel bad about it. He was Jehovah Fire, God my spare tire.

Fascinating to me is this thing called the spare tire. It is not wise to drive your car without one. Even when you are driving a car that is in excellent condition.  Brand new cars come with a spare. I worked for a car rental company many years ago and it was illegal to rent someone a vehicle that did not have a spare tire in the trunk. But only in rare occasions do you actually need to use your spare. As a matter of fact, you hope to never ever have to use it. To switch out from a main tire to a spare tire means that something went terribly wrong. But, you can feel secure knowing that it is there if ever you need it. And hopefully it is in working condition. If so, it will do the trick in your emergency. The problem, however, is that a spare tire is not meant for long-term/long distance driving. It’s a doughnut. It is smaller than the others and only serves to get you to the nearest service station where you can switch it out again for another sturdy, full-size, reliable tire.

Our culture has a spare-tire God mentality. God is our doughnut. He is the good old faithful, there when we need Him and always on time. When calamity strikes, He can put out the fires. So we always keep Him just near enough but do not dare to include Him in our public life or government. (It never ceases to amaze me, though, how our government functions are opened with prayer and when tragedy strikes the nation we always know to pray, but we do not want God anywhere near our day-to-day). We believe in Him but want to keep Him a safe distance from our life. We really do not want Him telling us what to do unless times are truly hard.

Now, if a spare tire is designed to only take you so far, what happens if the next service station is at a distance beyond your limit? What then? Is the spare tire then deemed useless? If that service station represents your next “happy place” in life and God is but your spare tire, happens when that business deal takes longer than you’d hoped or the surprise check in the mail gets delayed at the post office?  What happens to your relationship with God? What happens to you? Did God who is Love fail you? Do you now question God’s existence? Do you start to doubt what you once believed? Is the Bible no longer true? However inconvenient, God is more than a doughnut. He’s the whole damn car and the driver and the road. When we force Him into a subpar role, that level of relationship with God is not good enough for the long haul. This week’s advice…?

Invite God in as a majority share partner

Infuse God into every area of your life. Not so the He can manipulate your life but so that the He can be involved in it. I hear not-religious-but-spiritual leaders refer to themselves as co-authors of their life. I can accept that outlook. It acknowledges that there is in fact another author beside you.

Do not compartmentalize your relationship with God so that He is only relevant at certain times and in certain circumstances.

When involving Him, try focusing on the relationship more so than the results. Let the relationship and passion for Him inspire you to do well in the job at hand.

Acknowledge Him in all that you do (Proverbs 3:6). Consider that your Partner may have some input and say in some of your major decisions. The most apparent will be in the way that you conduct business and on what you are basing decisions, and perhaps less about the exact A or B choice to be made. Your partner may be concerned that you are taking action based on the right motivations and not leaving a trail of mass destruction in your wake. Include Him in your decision-making process by simply talking to Him about the options, challenges, risks, possible outcomes, etc.

Let your intentions be to please Him. Once again, God may have particular feelings about certain actions and circumstances. Seek first His Kingdom (Matthew 6:33). Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters (Colossians 3:23). Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people (Ephesians 6:7).

Do everything that you put your hand to for the glory of God no matter how trivial and regardless of the results. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him (Colossians 3:17).

I for one am guilty of using God as my spare tire. I am sure to make time for Him when I have an important decision to make or a presentation of some sort. I know that my spirit needs to be well connected and guided by Him during those times so that I can look good. I will rely heavily on God up until that big business opportunity comes through or I am out of the fire. Then it is back to business as usual. But God is worthy of so much more of me than that. He should be the business as usual. In all of our relationships whether with a true friend, or spouse, or business partner, or parent you do not reach out only when times are hard. You do life with that person. Let’s do life with Jesus.

I hope you enjoyed this read. There is more relationship advice to come, so please subscribe and join us again. Need to catch up? Click here for previous posts in this Relational God segment: "UH…RESPECT ME THOUGH?” “FRIEND OF…GOD? REALLY?” and “YOU MIGHT SEE HIM IN THE CHURCH BUT, SHAWTY, YOU DON’T KNOW GOD.” Leave your thoughts and comments below; I’d love to hear from you.

Remember, we are so…Spoiled By God!

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