I keep a pair of battery jumper cables in my vehicles just in case I happen to come up on someone in need of a battery charge. It happens to the best of us, a light is left on, the head lights don’t automatically turn off for some reason, or believe it or not batteries do eventually die and usually just when you least expect it and when you are the least prepared for a dead battery. I’ve been on both ends of this interaction, there have been times when I provided the jump and a number of times when I was the one seeking a kind soul to raise their hood and give me a boost.
Any experienced battery jumper understands what I mean when I say “red is the positive and black is the negative or neutral”. In my experience, it is good practice to always call out the cables and where you are about to connect them, because you never know how knowledgeable the person hooking up the cables on the other end is and that can be a bad situation for both cars if the cables are connected incorrectly. At times, even after hooking the cables up there still exists a bad connection and the cables have to be reconnected assuring that the electrical charge is able to flow from the source to the receiver. And in some instances, the "dead" battery is so weak that it is necessary to allow some time for the weaker battery to store up power before the charge will actually allow the car to start. In other words, when the cables are connected properly, and ample power has been attained from the source the flow of energy from the source to the dead battery happens easily.
For us, life happens and when it does we potentially run into a place where we experience a "dead battery" as well. Schedules are busy, responsibilities at work, home, and in all of our other obligations can create quite the drain on our energy levels if we allow them to overload our day. And then the unexpected gets added into the mix. Sickness, financial strains, marital or relational woes, and job-related stress are just a few examples of how life can create a drain on our lives, and if we don't have a source of energy restoring us, the same outcome to our car's battery will eventually happen in us as well.
Where do you turn when your life needs to recharge? What recharges you? Or even better who recharges your life when your battery needs a jumpstart? Just as a car battery has a positive and a negative post, we too can choose to recharge through a positive source or too often we can choose a negative influence as our means of recharging. For some working for the weekend is their driving force as they are convinced that if they can just make it to the weekend life is somehow going to be magically better. Unfortunately, the weekend offers extremes that drain our well-being rather than recharge our batteries if we aren't careful. A word of caution here, if what you attempt to use as a recharging mechanism moves you further away from God, you can be assured that recharging will not occur. As a matter of fact, Paul shares a pretty extensive list of things to avoid in this world in Galatians 5:19-21 "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying’s, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Conversely, in the same chapter right after Paul's list of negative charges, the Apostle gives us a list of positive charges that will most definitely re-energize our life's battery. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23.
When we are jumping somebody's car battery we have symbols on the battery to assist us, and jumper cables are color coded red and black to match up with covers on an automobile’s battery cables. In life we don't necessarily have color coded supports when we are choosing what we will use to recharge our internal battery. The good news is God is the best battery charger available. Choose God and choose the things in this world that are not necessarily of this world! “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30.
Coach Carter
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