Have You Ever Stepped Out On Faith?

I tell people all the time that my son has a tremendous amount of more faith than I do and I can prove it.  Every time I get into a car after he’s been driving it. 

The first thing I always look at when I get into one of our vehicles is the gas gauge.  If it’s right at or below a quarter of a tank the first place I go to is the gas station to get more gas.  I could not tell you how many times I would get in a vehicle behind my son and see the gas gauge setting dead on empty.  Then I’m sweating bullets hoping and praying that I can make it to a gas station before I run out of gas and is stranded by the road. 

I could probably count on one hand how many times in my life I have seen a gas light come on in a vehicle that I had been driving.  I don’t take the chance and I always make sure I’ve got plenty of gas in my vehicle.  One time my wife and I went somewhere and the first thing I did when we got to our destination was I stopped and filled the car up with gas as I didn’t know how much this was going to cost us and I wanted to make sure I had enough gas to get home on. 

If I am the only one that drives a vehicle all week I still look at the gas gauge every morning when I get in it.  Even though I may have filled it up the day before. 

When I decided to go to college after being out of high school about ten years one of the first things we decided was that I needed a good dependable vehicle to go back and forth to work and school on.  I was going to work during the day and then I would leave work and go straight to college close by.  I would leave home about 6 am in the morning and wouldn’t get back home until 10:30 or 11 every night. Monday through Thursday.  

One morning when I was on my way to work I knew I needed to stop and get gas that morning.  My gas gauge was sitting just above the red mark so I knew I had enough to get to the station on.  Suddenly without warning my car stalled and quit.  Thankfully I was at a place I could safely pull off the road out of traffic.  I was about two miles from the nearest gas station and of course this was in the days before cell phones.  I didn’t know what else to do so I struck out walking.  I was already late for work and I had no way of contacting anyone.  When I got to the station I asked the lady if I could call my wife so she could come and get me and to call my job and call the shop to come and pick up my car. 

The mechanics came and picked up my car and towed it back to the shop to figure out what caused it to just quit on me.  I was certain it was something mechanical as it just quit and I couldn’t crank it back up. 

I was already so late for work I decided to go ahead and just take a day off.  To say the least I was frustrated not knowing what was wrong with my car.  My wife and I were worried how much the shop bill was going to be and our worse fear is that it would be something to do with the motor and we would have to get it replaced.  We were afraid it was going to cost us a lot of money, money we didn’t have. A couple of hours later the shop called and said they had my car ready and I could come and pick it up.    

When we got there one of my former classmates that worked at the shop looked at me queerly with a grin on his face.  I’ll never forget what he told me.  “David, you know if you’ll put gas in your car you can go a whole lot farther and you wouldn’t be breaking down beside the road.” 

That day I could have crawled under a rock and hid for a lifetime.  In my ignorance I didn’t know with that type of car that when it hit the red mark the tank was empty.  Every other car or truck I’ve owned prior to that the red mark was the warning mark not the empty mark.   But it was a lesson learned, not only for me but for the shop as well, as they went over every little thing that could have made the car to stop running before they decided to put some gas in the tank and try it. 

Now you know why I don’t wait to get up the road to the next station to see if the gas is a little cheaper anymore like I used to.  And you know why I don’t let it get too much under a quarter of a tank either before I’m finding the first gas station I come to. You also now know why my son has more faith than I do as he'll drive a vehicle until it is dead on empty. 

And as the famous Paul Harvey used to say, “Now, you know the rest of the story.” 


Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.  (James 2:17 KJV)