The Wrong Fuel
Put the wrong fuel into your car, and you can seriously damage the engine.
Consistently put the wrong food into your body, and your health will eventually feel the consequences.
Fill your soul with influences and activities that pull you away from God, and they will inevitably affect the person you are becoming.
The challenge is that unhealthy things rarely arrive wearing warning labels. What damages the soul is often attractively packaged, culturally accepted, and similar enough to something good that we convince ourselves it must be harmless.
But not everything that looks good is good for us—and not everything that fills us fuels us.
Several years ago, I was traveling home from Tampa with my family after a wonderful weekend away. We were tired, ready to be home, and still had about 75 miles ahead of us. I pulled into a busy gas station offering some of the cheapest gas I had seen in a while.
After maneuvering alongside a pump, I grabbed the nozzle and began filling our van.
Fortunately, it did not take long to realize that I was putting diesel into our gas-powered engine!
If you know anything about engines, you know this is not a small mistake. The wrong fuel can cause significant damage and cost thousands of dollars to repair.
For the next hour, I was not a happy chappy!
Thankfully, I had only added about one gallon of diesel to a 17-gallon tank. After seeking advice from friends who understood engines far better than I did, we took the necessary steps and made it home with no obvious damage.
But the most frustrating part was not simply that I had made a mistake. It was that I had ignored several warning signs.
The signs were there. I just kept moving past them.
How often do we do the same thing with our souls?
We sense that a relationship is pulling us away from who God is calling us to become. We know a habit is gaining control. We notice our peace disappearing, our convictions weakening, or our appetite for God fading.
Yet instead of stopping, we explain away the discomfort and keep filling our lives with something never designed to sustain us.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” —Proverbs 4:23
Looking back, three warning signs could have prevented my mistake. Perhaps these three questions can help us recognize what we are allowing into our lives.
1. Am I forcing something to fit?
A diesel nozzle is shaped differently from a gasoline nozzle. At the time, I did not know that. The nozzle did not fit properly, but instead of asking why, I pushed harder and made it fit.
How often do we force things into our lives that do not fit the person God created us to be?
We force relationships that compromise our convictions. We pursue opportunities that look impressive but erode our character. We accommodate behaviors that require us to become less honest, less loving, or less spiritually alive.
Sometimes the resistance we feel is not an obstacle to overcome. It is a warning to heed.
Ask yourself: Does this fit the person I am—and the person God is calling me to become?
If something only fits when you silence your conscience, ignore Scripture, or become someone you do not want to be, perhaps it does not belong in your life.
2. Is the price worth the prize?
Another warning appeared when I glanced at the pump. The price was about 25 cents more per gallon than I expected.
Something did not add up—but I kept pumping. Everything meaningful carries a cost. Love requires vulnerability. Growth requires discipline. Faithfulness requires sacrifice. There are good prices worth paying.
But some things cost far more than they could ever give us. What is this decision costing your peace, integrity, family, or closeness with God? What will today’s compromise cost you tomorrow? A friend often asks, “Is the price worth the prize?”
Sin frequently shows us the prize while hiding the price. It offers pleasure without mentioning bondage, attention without mentioning emptiness, and success without mentioning what we may have to surrender to achieve it.
Before you keep paying, count the real cost.
3. What are the people who love me trying to tell me?
The final confirmation came when my dad said, “I didn’t know your van took diesel.”
Neither did I, Dad!
His words confirmed the concern already growing inside me. Sometimes another person can see what we are doing more clearly than we can—especially when desire, pride, fear, or exhaustion has clouded our judgment.
We all need people who love us enough to interrupt us.
Who has permission to question you? Who can challenge your choices without being dismissed as negative or unsupportive? If people who know and love you are expressing concern, do not automatically become defensive. Their words may be one of God’s warning lights on your dashboard.
Check the Tank
What we repeatedly watch shapes our imagination. What we continually listen to influences our thinking. The relationships we pursue affect our direction. The habits we excuse eventually help determine who we become.
We cannot continually consume what is empty or destructive and expect to remain spiritually healthy.
So, what have you been pouring into your soul?
These are not invitations to shame, but invitations to grace. God does not reveal what is unhealthy to condemn us. He reveals it because He loves us too much to leave us running on something that will eventually damage us.
Perhaps it is time to stop the pump, heed the warnings, and allow God to fill your life again with what is true, life-giving, and good.
Your soul is far too valuable to run on the wrong fuel.
Consistently put the wrong food into your body, and your health will eventually feel the consequences.
Fill your soul with influences and activities that pull you away from God, and they will inevitably affect the person you are becoming.
The challenge is that unhealthy things rarely arrive wearing warning labels. What damages the soul is often attractively packaged, culturally accepted, and similar enough to something good that we convince ourselves it must be harmless.
But not everything that looks good is good for us—and not everything that fills us fuels us.
Several years ago, I was traveling home from Tampa with my family after a wonderful weekend away. We were tired, ready to be home, and still had about 75 miles ahead of us. I pulled into a busy gas station offering some of the cheapest gas I had seen in a while.
After maneuvering alongside a pump, I grabbed the nozzle and began filling our van.
Fortunately, it did not take long to realize that I was putting diesel into our gas-powered engine!
If you know anything about engines, you know this is not a small mistake. The wrong fuel can cause significant damage and cost thousands of dollars to repair.
For the next hour, I was not a happy chappy!
Thankfully, I had only added about one gallon of diesel to a 17-gallon tank. After seeking advice from friends who understood engines far better than I did, we took the necessary steps and made it home with no obvious damage.
But the most frustrating part was not simply that I had made a mistake. It was that I had ignored several warning signs.
The signs were there. I just kept moving past them.
How often do we do the same thing with our souls?
We sense that a relationship is pulling us away from who God is calling us to become. We know a habit is gaining control. We notice our peace disappearing, our convictions weakening, or our appetite for God fading.
Yet instead of stopping, we explain away the discomfort and keep filling our lives with something never designed to sustain us.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” —Proverbs 4:23
Looking back, three warning signs could have prevented my mistake. Perhaps these three questions can help us recognize what we are allowing into our lives.
1. Am I forcing something to fit?
A diesel nozzle is shaped differently from a gasoline nozzle. At the time, I did not know that. The nozzle did not fit properly, but instead of asking why, I pushed harder and made it fit.
How often do we force things into our lives that do not fit the person God created us to be?
We force relationships that compromise our convictions. We pursue opportunities that look impressive but erode our character. We accommodate behaviors that require us to become less honest, less loving, or less spiritually alive.
Sometimes the resistance we feel is not an obstacle to overcome. It is a warning to heed.
Ask yourself: Does this fit the person I am—and the person God is calling me to become?
If something only fits when you silence your conscience, ignore Scripture, or become someone you do not want to be, perhaps it does not belong in your life.
2. Is the price worth the prize?
Another warning appeared when I glanced at the pump. The price was about 25 cents more per gallon than I expected.
Something did not add up—but I kept pumping. Everything meaningful carries a cost. Love requires vulnerability. Growth requires discipline. Faithfulness requires sacrifice. There are good prices worth paying.
But some things cost far more than they could ever give us. What is this decision costing your peace, integrity, family, or closeness with God? What will today’s compromise cost you tomorrow? A friend often asks, “Is the price worth the prize?”
Sin frequently shows us the prize while hiding the price. It offers pleasure without mentioning bondage, attention without mentioning emptiness, and success without mentioning what we may have to surrender to achieve it.
Before you keep paying, count the real cost.
3. What are the people who love me trying to tell me?
The final confirmation came when my dad said, “I didn’t know your van took diesel.”
Neither did I, Dad!
His words confirmed the concern already growing inside me. Sometimes another person can see what we are doing more clearly than we can—especially when desire, pride, fear, or exhaustion has clouded our judgment.
We all need people who love us enough to interrupt us.
Who has permission to question you? Who can challenge your choices without being dismissed as negative or unsupportive? If people who know and love you are expressing concern, do not automatically become defensive. Their words may be one of God’s warning lights on your dashboard.
Check the Tank
What we repeatedly watch shapes our imagination. What we continually listen to influences our thinking. The relationships we pursue affect our direction. The habits we excuse eventually help determine who we become.
We cannot continually consume what is empty or destructive and expect to remain spiritually healthy.
So, what have you been pouring into your soul?
- Are you forcing something to fit, even though you know it does not belong?
- Are you paying a price that is becoming greater than the prize?
- Are people who love you saying something you would rather not hear?
These are not invitations to shame, but invitations to grace. God does not reveal what is unhealthy to condemn us. He reveals it because He loves us too much to leave us running on something that will eventually damage us.
Perhaps it is time to stop the pump, heed the warnings, and allow God to fill your life again with what is true, life-giving, and good.
Your soul is far too valuable to run on the wrong fuel.
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