Revving Your Car

Being stressed is like revving a car while it’s in neutral.

Luke 12:22-34

Reference:  v.25  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (NIV Bible)

Explore:  Have you ever revved your car really loudly while it’s sitting in neutral?  It makes a lot of noise but you don’t get very far.  In fact, if you were to take your car out of gear and sit there revving the motor for an extended period of time, you would probably use up all the resources in your car.  You would use up all your petrol, all the oil and burn up all the water that’s needed in your car for it to function.  Probably the only resource you wouldn’t wear out is the rubber on the tyres!  You would use up all of this resource and yet not get any further down the road because the car was in neutral.

Application:  Being stressed is like revving a car while it’s in neutral.  It can be noisy, uses up a lot of our resources and yet doesn’t get us any further along in our life.  When stressed we are often noisy as we complain and whinge about what is happening in our lives.  All our resources are used up by constantly saturating our thought processes around the stressful situation and by using all our emotional energy into the stress in our lives.  And yet, as the Bible says, we don’t add any time to our life just through stressing.  In fact, looking at the analogy of the car in neutral, we probably use up more of our time rather than gaining extra.  It’s easy to say, ‘Don’t stress’, but a lot harder not to do it.  When we are in a stressful situation it is good to think through possibilities, however it is dangerous to allow the stress to filter into every area of your life.  If that’s the case, you’re just turning in to that revving car sitting in neutral.

Prayer:  Lord, no matter what life we may lead we always come up against some stressful situations.  Help us to rely on You during these times and not get caught up in all of the challenges.  Amen.

What is the most recent stressful situation you have had?  How did you get yourself into first gear and start moving on from it?

Luke