Today, there’s a race going on. The Tour de France is a 23-day, 2414-mile bicycling trek through France, ending on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Sunday, July 18. There are 184 riders in 8 teams. But there’s another race happening. It’s among car manufacturers who are vying to develop the most popular all-electric vehicle. Everyone’s in the game and the pressure is on to stay ahead of the pack in this trendy obsession sweeping the world. For now, though, the more common halfway-there model is the Hybrid – half electric, half fuel. The Hybrid is designed so that the electric battery handles the lighter loads, the lower speeds, while braking, the idling at red lights and stop signs, as it is not powerful enough, on its own, to do more. When it reaches its full capacity, it toggles over to allow the gasoline-powered engine to kick in for the screaming 0-60 in 2.7 seconds.
Christians are like Hybrids (work with me here). We are living as mere mortal beings (the gas bit) while having been upgraded to more-than-conquerors Kingdom beings (the electric bit). Because we are better acquainted (comfortable?) with gas engines, we much prefer to keep filling up at one of the many local pumps (tradition?). Sure, we now have an electric battery (our life in Christ) but we mostly ‘use’ it for things like, “Now I lay me down to sleep . . .”, Sunday mornings, coffee with the pastor, etc. It doesn’t seem to get us through Monday mornings, bad news, broken relationships, and such, so we ‘toggle’ back to our faithful gas engines. G.K. Chesterton once observed, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult, and left untried.”
I have a question: Is it possible that our new ‘battery’ is far more powerful than the hybrid above, far more ‘instant response’ than we know, far more able to send us sailing into Monday morning (even before coffee??) sounding like King David? “My heart explodes with praise to you! Now and forever my heart bows in worship to you, my King and my God! Every day I will lift up my praise to your name with praises that will last throughout eternity. Lord, you are great and worthy of the highest praise! For there is no end to the discovery of the greatness that surrounds you. Our hearts bubble over as we celebrate the fame of your marvelous beauty. We shout with ecstatic joy over your breakthrough for us. God, everyone sees your goodness, for your tender love is blended into everything you do.” (excerpted from Psalm 145, TPT) That sounds to me like something worth trying! PD
