Today I was talking to my CGA Guatemala Track Leader Marielle about a couple of things going on in my life. One of the things I talked to her about was feeling the need to perform at a certain level to be accepted in a group. Some of this has came up while I have been down in here when I am playing volleyball and at ultimate frisbee. I am a very competitve person and I don’t like to lose because I’ve been on so many losing teams in my lifetime.
I told Marielle about when I was eleven when one of my coaches met my parents at a grocery store and told me that I wouldn’t amount to anything because I didn’t have any natural ability in sports. So I’ve had an attitude of “Prove it” attitude to overcome any doubts people placed on me to do more things for Christ. I even scored a goal my senior year of high school! Awesome!
I also told her the “Prove It” attitude is a double-edged sword with me because the good side is I can do all things through Christ. The bad thing is with the “Prove It” mentality is because in areas where I am not as gifted in sports for example there are times where I feel like I have to catch the frisbee a certain amount of times or hit the volleyball right more than wrong to be accepted.
Marielle then brought up the illustration of what kind of gasoline are you putting into your car daily? There are two kinds of gasoline we put into our cars daily. We can either run our cars off of others approval. This is called people gasoline which is represented by the black “regular” gasoline in the picture. This means if someone or a group you want to like you is giving you complements, approval, and accelades then you’re filled up. When the people you’re striving for approval don’t say hello to you in the hallway, not telling you a great job, or not hanging around you then the gas starts to burn quickly. When the gas tank is running off of at least a mix of people fuel or mostly this kind of fuel you will tired, unsatisfied, and burned out. People will fail you because we’re not perfect and we’re broken. I fail many people everyday because I am not perfect!
The second kind of fuel we can run off of is Premium Fuel which is represented by the red gas pump in the picture. This is called Heavenly Gasoline. Heavenly Gasoline is ran off purely off of Jesus. Jesus is perfect in every way. When people say to us bye see you later, Jesus has open arms to us all the time. He loves us no matter what we do or don’t do. We don’t have to earn His love. He gives us the free gift of eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. When we are in Christ Jesus he is our friend who sticks closer to us than our brother. He will never let us go! The great thing is filling your car with Heavenly Fuel will keep the gas tank full all the time because He love never runs out for us.
What kind of Fuel will you put in your car today? Everyday we have a choice of putting fuel sucking people fuel in our car or we can put in the everlasting Heavenly fuel in our cars daily. Ask God to fill you up with His gasoline for your empty places in your heart. He keeps us full every time no matter what life brings to us daily.
