Outside Looking In

We were not wealthy by any means but when I was growing up but I can remember on my sixteenth birthday my parents bought me a used Nissan 300ZX.  It was the most beautiful car I had ever laid my eyes on.  It was sleek with a spoiler on the back and it was very fast.  The speedometer registered 140 and believe me I tested it. (Don’t tell my dad) The sound system was out of this world and at night when the dashboard lights were turned on it glowed orange like the cockpit of a F-15 fighter jet.  It would even speak to me if something was wrong.  If I was running low on gas this sexy little computer voice would come out of nowhere and say “Fuel level is low. Fuel level is low.”  The first night I had it I was cruising around my hometown of Port St. Joe and I am almost positive I heard it say, “Your life is about to change.”  And you know what? That sexy little British voice was right!  I went from this pudgy little fifteen year old huffing around on a Schwinn to the Big Man on Campus!  It was almost overnight that my life changed.  A couple of weeks later I had a girlfriend, I was elected the president of the Student Council and everyone wanted a ride in my new car. 

I became so obsessed with my new car and identity that I made sure it was washed and shiny almost every weekend.

However, I never really understood that I needed to take care of the motor as well.  Gas was a given but that was as far as I got from a mechanical standpoint. 

So on the day of my prom, as my girlfriend spent all day fixing her hair, I spent all day washing and waxing my Z.  To the say the least it was showroom clean.  When I was done I went inside to get cleaned up for the evening’s festivities.  After one thousand pictures of me in my tuxedo I took off to go pick up my girl.  My girlfriend lived in Apalachicola, which was about a 30 minute wooded drive down Highway 98 from Port St. Joe.  Now, I have made it in about 15 minutes before when I was running late for curfew, but that’s another story. 

About half way into my journey my beautiful Z car decided to quit.  It began to sputter and make funny noises and had just enough juice left for me to pull her off the road and then she died. I had completely blown the motor. You see, I hadn’t checked the oil in a while and what I found out was a simple little concept about an engine: No oil, no engine.

I mean who knew?

So I found myself standing on the side of Highway 98 in the middle of nowhere decked out in my tuxedo with my thumb out. 

My sweet ride had left me stranded on the side of the road because I had neglected to take care of the inside.  Sure, the outside looked great, but it wasn’t doing me much good at that particular moment.

Finally, two elderly women pulled over and gave me a ride to my girlfriend’s house. We wound up taking her dad’s dusty old Pontiac Grandpa car to the prom. For the record, it is still in the top 10 on my “worst days” list.  

The truth is, too many times in our walk with Christ we tend to focus on the outside appearance while the inside is wrecked.  What will people think of me? How should I act? What does this look like in public?

Eventually our lives breakdown and leave us stranded on the side of life’s highway because the inside, our hearts, have been neglected.  A polished outside is useless when the inside is wrecked. 

David says it best in Psalm 139:23-24.  Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

The king of Israel stooped low that day, in humility, and asked God to begin working on the inside of his heart. The exact place where you and I must come to in our lives if we want to see change.  We must ask God to help us recognize those things that are affecting our soul and ask for His help by surrendering those things over to His power.

There comes a time in our lives that we must stop being so concerned with what we look like on the outside (Religion) and start allowing God to work on the inside (Relationship).

Outside appearances are deceiving and they don’t last. Our soul will eventually break down when our heart is not fully surrendered.

Today, ask God to heal the wreckage and make you new on the inside and when you do the outside of you will look better than ever!