Stick with it - Devotion for 10/7/07

Stick with it – Devotion for 10/9/07

I remember what it was like when I was 15 and learning how to drive a car with a stick shift. At the time we lived in Raleigh, NC, and my car was a 1976 Datsun 280Z (Google it if you don’t know what that is). This awesome little sports car was a fun car, but learning to drive it was another thing. My dad would take me out to rural areas outside of town for me to practice driving, and I had such a difficult thing getting the timing down of when to pop the clutch and when to shift. My dad would have to constantly instruct me when to do what, and I would get so frustrated that I almost just wanted to get rid of the car (notice the use of the word “almost”). I remember dad telling me, “One day you’ll just get it, and you won’t even have to think about what to do and when to shift – you’ll just do it without even thinking about it.” He let me know that it may be struggle until I get to that point, and that I may make a few mistakes, but if I was diligent, I would get there.

I thought about those experiences of learning to drive a stick shift this morning as I read Jeremiah 31:27-34. In this passage God is proclaiming that a new day is coming for Israel and Judah. God has already had to execute judgment upon them, and now God is proclaiming that a new start is coming and a new covenant that will be unlike the old covenant: “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of the, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34) I think that learning to be a faithful follower of Christ is like learning to drive a stick shift. As immature Christians, we get so caught up in trying to do things exactly right, and yet we find ourselves making many mistakes. But the more we press on within the Kingdom of God, the more we know what to do – and we begin to live as if it is written on our hearts, instead of just in our head. Today, let us stick with following Christ, even if it means we make a few mistakes along the way. As my dad told me a little over 20 years ago, “One day you’ll just get it, and you won’t even have to think about what to do and when to shift – you’ll just do it without even thinking about it.”