Lug Nut Faith

W

hen it comes to cars, I’m not too mechanically minded.  Oh sure, I can crank the thing, I can have the oil changed, I can put gas in the tank, and I can make sure it gets washed.  Other than that, I have no clue about how cars operate.  I can’t hear noises the engine makes, I don’t know how liquid gas explodes in an engine to make it go, and you can forget about me understanding the inner workings of fuel injection systems, hydraulic brakes, or anything else pertaining to a car that has more than one syllable in the word.  Gas, oil, start, stop, go, crank, shut off, that pretty much sums up my knowledge of the automobile.

In late November, I saw a car in the distance with its flashers going full-tilt.  Beside the vehicle, on his hands and knees, was a man trying to remove a flat tire and replace it with another.  He was at the fun stage of unscrewing the lug nuts in order to remove and replace the flat.  He didn’t look to happy about his current situation, especially since it was raining.  Nonetheless, the tire had to be changed and he continued removing those lug nuts in the hopes of soon being back on the road.

As I continued my drive back to Fort Worth, I turned off the radio and thought about what I had just seen.  It wasn’t the first time I had witnessed someone changing a flat. In fact, that is a pretty common occurrence in a place as large as this.  But it was the first time I had actually thought about the role of the lug nut and how important it is to all of us who drive cars on a regular basis or on any basis for that matter.

If you think about it, the entire driving process comes right down to the effectiveness and the integrity of the lug nut.  No matter how expensive the car, no matter how much leather and wood is on the inside, no matter the brand, and no matter the dealership’s name emblazoned on the trunk, unless the lug nuts hold the tires on the wheels, the car will go nowhere.  It will in fact be useless to the driver.  Isn’t it something that a car with a price tag reaching perhaps twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars is only as good as the lug nuts holding its tires?

So what does all this have to do with the Christian faith?  Everything!  What the lug nut is to the car, faith is to the believer in Jesus Christ.  It doesn’t matter where we go to church, it doesn’t matter how many committees we serve on, it doesn’t matter how many church functions or socials we attend, it doesn’t’ matter how much money we put in the plate on Sunday morning, nor does it matter that our family has belonged to that church since the corner stone was laid.  Without faith in God, all of that, and I do mean all of that, our walk with Him is nonexistent. 

The writer of Hebrews 11:6 reminds us of this fact, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”  The emphasis placed on faith here is clear.  Without it, we cannot be pleasing to God.  This is the lug nut of the Christian life—faith!  It is the foundation of our walk and the very essence of our relationship to God.  With faith, we have full access to our Heavenly Father but without it, we are as helpless as a car with no lug nuts. 

Today it is not very popular to talk about faith in God or faith in anything for that matter.  The world operates on fact, not on faith we are told!  Yet, I see thousands of people on the highway each day who have placed their faith and their lives in a little piece of metal that keeps their tires on their cars and their cars on the road.  How strong is your belief in God?  Are you living with lug nut faith today?  I surely hope you are!