Fresh Air

Imagine if you will that you are cruising along a long stretch of road in your sports car through the desert. You are having a good time when all of a sudden your engine starts sputtering. You try to give it more gas but the engine is not responding. Finally, it quits and you slowly coast over to the shoulder of the road. While you are trying to think of what could possible be the cause of the problem, you remember that you have neglected to preform some routine maintenance. For starters you aren’t sure if you have ever replaced the air filter since you bought the car three years ago. How could you have missed that simple task? That brings to mind all the things that not having proper fresh air through the intake can do to an engine. The spark plugs come to mind as you realize that they can be become dirty and start fouling out. Add those things to the hot, dry, and dusty environment you are currently driving in and you soon have come to a conclusion as to what happened. I have been this traveler stuck on the side of the road. I have been that person that was hoping a stranger would come along and help me. Have you?

Much like your nice sports car needs fresh air to stay running correctly, we need fresh air for our spiritual life to remain healthy. Spiritually speaking, fresh air can come in a few different forms. The easiest might be to take fresh air literally. Get outside! When we leave the confines of our air conditioned existence we are able to completely surround ourselves with God’s presence. Just take a walk in the evening and listen to the animals. Here in the south you can hear the cicadas buzzing away. All of that is God. You can stock up on Holy fresh air. So, after you finish this blog post, go outside. Breathe the air but first we must check on our filter.

All that fresh air must travel through the air filter in order to reach the engine. We all know that it won’t do much good if that filter is dirty and stained. In our spiritual lives we have our actions or our thought process as our filter. It can become dirty, clogged with negativity and sinful thoughts. Much like a re-chargeable air filter, we must be washed. Every day we need to be bathed in the Word. The Word will wash all the sin and dirt away. If you have skipped this crucial step in last several days, months, or years don’t worry. It doesn’t matter what kind of dirt or sin is keeping that Holy fresh air from getting inside, the Word can wash anything away.

After you have cleaned that re-chargeable air filter, your next step is to oil it. That way the dirt is less likely to stick and stop the air flow. Here is where our spiritual lives need community. That fellowship and community creates a barrier that sin has a hard time sticking to. It is less likely to cloud our judgment and affect our decisions. You will find that a community gets together and makes the job of bathing in the Word a joint effort. We should never be left to keep this maintenance up alone.

I hope this has shown you how important “fresh air” is for your car and your spiritual life. Our faith needs maintenance; make sure you don’t neglect it. If you find yourself stranded on the side of the road right now, looking for mercy from a stranger, I challenge you to pick up the Word and drown yourself in it. For losing yourself to the Word is where living begins.