Is Your Spirit Overdue for Maintenance?

Just like a car that breaks down from ignored warning signs, our spiritual lives can suffer when we neglect regular care. This article draws a powerful parallel between vehicle maintenance and our walk with God, asking the challenging question: Is your spirit overdue for maintenance? With biblical insights and personal reflection, it encourages readers to recognize the signs of spiritual neglect. It also calls them to rediscover the discipline that leads to lasting strength and readiness.

Just as neglecting car maintenance can lead to an unexpected breakdown, so ignoring spiritual disciplines can leave us unprepared for what truly matters.

While riding in the backseat of my Subaru Outback, one of my coworkers said it sounded as if I had a bad wheel bearing. I previously noticed a change in the sound of my tires on the road, but I confess I’m just shy of ignorant when it comes to car maintenance. I shared the news with my husband, but he didn’t seem too distressed, so I continued to drive the car every day—for months. Until one day, I couldn’t.

On the way out of the mechanic’s shop, my husband called me. “You know the story of a frog in slowly boiling water?” he asked. I did. “That was us,” he sheepishly replied. The pesky noise kept getting worse over time, until one day our car was the equivalent of a cooked frog. Though plenty expensive, the repair made all the difference in the sound and, more importantly, the safety of the car.

Discipline is my word of the year this year, and that car experience reminds me of our need for it. As we get into busy seasons of unending to-do lists and trying to balance family/church/work life, we can become distracted. In the process, we neglect to hear the sound of something in need of spiritual repair. We delay—or worse, skip—our scheduled maintenance, and soon we grow accustomed to the brokenness.

The Word of God, our owner’s manual, gives us plenty of written instructions about how to avoid the frog’s (and my Subaru’s) demise.

Staying Spiritually Alert Through Self-Control

Foremost in my mind is the apostle Paul speaking to the Thessalonian church:

For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. When they say, “Peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in the dark, for this day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or the darkness. So then, let us not sleep, like the rest, but let us stay awake and be self-controlled (1 Thessalonians 5:2–6 CSB).

There it is—the discipline of self-control.

Here are a few other things listed in our owner’s manual as necessary maintenance to prevent an unintended breakdown:

Discipline of Action

I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:27 CSB).

Discipline of Thoughts

We are destroying arguments and all arrogance raised against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5 NASB).

Discipline of Renewal

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2 CSB).

The day we finally admitted the Subaru needed maintenance was a very important one. Our youngest daughter was preparing to graduate from university a semester early and summa cum laude from the College of Honors. It was a proud mom moment. There we sat on the side of the road, wondering if we were going to make it to her graduation ceremony. I could look back and see how the rhythm of brokenness lulled me. Distractions led me to wait another day to fix my car. On graduation day, I wished I could go back and replace the bearing on any other day— but I couldn’t.

When Brokenness Becomes Complacency

Jesus reminds me of the spiritual equivalent in Matthew 25, where He tells the parable of the ten virgins. Five of the women were wise, alert, and ready for what was to come. But five had become complacent and were no longer prepared for the return of the bridegroom. They too had been lulled into a rhythm of brokenness. They wished they could go back and be disciplined on any other day—but they couldn’t.

Any of us could easily find ourselves in the same position. If we start to notice signs of complacency, Jesus concludes with actionable wisdom we can apply to our lives today: “Therefore, be on the alert [be prepared and ready], for you do not know the day nor the hour [when the Son of Man will come]” (Matthew 25:13 AMP).

Our spiritual preparedness today helps to prevent a breakdown later. So, let’s commit to practice the discipline in our owner’s manual.

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