When the Check Engine Light Comes On

Have you ever driven around with your check engine light on? Most of us have. The car still starts. We still get to work and run errands. Everything seems fine, so we tell ourselves we’ll deal with it later. But that little light was never meant to stop the car. It was meant to warn us that something beneath the surface needs attention. Ignored long enough, a simple fix can become something far more damaging.

I know that light well. For a long time, one was glowing in my spiritual life, and I kept right on driving.

About four months ago, I stepped away from teaching. I thought I was entering a restful season of simply spending time with God. Instead, something very different unfolded – something so difficult that it began breaking me. Looking back, though, the cracks had started long before.

For months, everything probably looked fine from the outside, but inside, I knew something was not right. The time I once treasured with God had become a place of frustration. I would open my Bible, and it was like reading through a fog. Passages I had read many times suddenly seemed hard to understand, and even simple concepts felt beyond my grasp. For someone who had always loved studying Scripture, this was deeply discouraging.

Prayer became a struggle too. At times my prayers felt like nothing more than empty words spoken into an abyss. I knew what I believed about God, but knowing those truths and feeling their reality were not the same. He had once felt so close. Now He felt distant, and I didn’t understand why.

Eventually, the frustration began changing the way I approached my time with God. The harder Scripture became to understand, the less I wanted to open my Bible. The emptier prayer felt, the harder it became to pray. It wasn’t intentional, and it didn’t happen overnight. It happened quietly: a little less time in His Word, a little less prayer, a little more distraction, and a little more distance.

The hardest part to admit is that I saw the warning signs and kept moving forward anyway, because I could. I was still preparing studies, encouraging others, and fulfilling responsibilities. I was still doing things for God even as my personal time with Him was shrinking. Because I was still functioning, I convinced myself everything would be okay.

I don’t think I am alone in this. When prayer feels dry, we try harder to pray. When Scripture feels distant, we start another reading plan. When we feel disconnected from God, we reach for another devotional, Bible study, podcast, or Christian book. None of those things are wrong, but sometimes we are trying to turn off the warning light without ever opening the hood. We address the symptoms without slowing down long enough to ask God what is happening underneath them.

For me, opening the hood began with stepping away. At first, I thought I had found the problem: I needed to learn how to abide in Christ again. That was true, but it was only addressing a symptom. The real diagnosis was something much bigger.

What followed was hard. I won’t pretend otherwise. In these past four months, I have had more meltdowns than I can remember, crying out to God as my husband held me. When I couldn’t find the words, he prayed for me. Sometimes all I had were tears. There were even moments when I questioned my faith and allowed doubt to seep in. I was trying to be obedient, yet it felt as if God had placed a pane of glass between us. He was on one side, and I was on the other, as though He were separating Himself from me.

It wasn’t until after many of those meltdowns that I began to understand: God had placed me in the wilderness, and He had placed me there for a reason. My faith could not depend upon how close He felt. Feelings change. Circumstances change. Seasons change. But the truth of who God is does not. Like a tree in a dry land, I needed roots that reached deeper than my emotions – roots anchored in His character, His promises, and His Word.

Even when I cannot feel His presence the way I think I should, I can see that He is still with me. I see it in the hummingbirds that bring me joy, in the gentle breeze that reminds me of the Holy Spirit, and in the sunsets that always turn my thoughts to His glory. I especially see it in the Scripture He places on my husband’s heart to share with me. He has been here all along, in the very places I am finally learning to notice.

I am also learning that functioning is not always the same thing as flourishing. Sometimes the warning light we would rather make disappear is actually God’s kindness, inviting us to stop and pay attention. And sometimes the deepest roots are formed in the wilderness- when everything feels dry, when we cannot feel God near, and when our faith is tested. It is there that we choose to believe He is the same God yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and that His promises never change, including His promise never to leave us.

So, friend, if a warning light has been glowing in your spiritual life, don’t be afraid to pull over and ask God what’s happening beneath the surface.

How might remembering what Christ has already done for you strengthen your trust in Him, even when He feels distant? How might your time with God change if you came to Him in awe of who He is, rather than measuring it by how close He feels?  Where might God be inviting you to slow down and simply stand in awe of Him, rather than rushing through your time with Him? Please share in the comments.