Shifting Gears

Are you old enough to remember when you could fill up your car's gas tank for about five dollars? And you fueled your car at places called "service" stations because workers there would pump the gas, check the oil, and clean the windshield? And if you had a screwdriver and a wrench, you could actually fix something under the hood?

Back then cars had no air conditioning—at least not the ones I drove. Each summer we would sweat out long drives with "natural" air conditioning—we rolled down the windows. And we rolled them down by hand, for we had no power windows back then.

We're raising up a generation of drivers who never have driven a vehicle equipped with a manual transmission. It used to be a rite of passage for teenagers to learn about stick shifts in driver-education classes. While worried instructors looked over their shoulders, young drivers tried to make their right hand operate the gear-shift lever in harmony with their left foot on the clutch. It was a grind for everyone involved.

Today, it's not only the professional truck driver who needs to know a thing or two about shifting gears. All of us need to learn this skill.

A school teacher has to shift gears from one hour to the next each time a different group of students walk into her classroom. A longtime worker has to shift gears when it's time to retire. A dad has to shift gears when he arrives home after a busy day at his job, putting aside the worries of work and focusing on his family. In response to the needs of her children, a mom has to shift from cook to counselor, from nurse to disciplinarian. And just when parents begin to steer the family smoothly, the children graduate from high school and it's time to shift gears again into the empty nest phase.

A minister's unpredictable daily schedule may require him to move from counseling a husband and wife who are experiencing marriage difficulties, to teaching a Bible study, to leading a business meeting, to conducting a funeral or visiting a hospital emergency room. A well-meaning member of the congregation with a poor sense of timing may tell the minister some disturbing news immediately before he steps to the pulpit to preach. It's enough to cause emotional whiplash.

To make things even more complicated, we live in a fast-paced world where everything moves in high gear. TV shows and commercials bombard us with rapid-fire images. The Internet feeds us information on demand. Even worship services seem hurried, with little time to simply be still in the Lord's presence.

Have you noticed that God built pauses into the fabric of creation? Nature itself finds a way to gear down. Night falls, nudging us to be quiet and rest. Rainy days and changing seasons compel us to vary our routines. Old Testament Sabbath laws illustrate the need to shift gears, and so does Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, who "often withdrew to lonely places and prayed" (Luke 5:16). Even a machine—like a car that needs to stop for gas and oil—can't keep going if it's always running and never serviced.

The Christian life has no reverse gear. Jesus said that once we put our hand to the plow, we need to keep moving forward. But we don't always have to move at a blazing pace.

Honestly, now: Is it time to gear it down a little?