Check Your Alignment

This past weekend was a weekend full of car maintenance. Two of our vehicles needed tires and alignments. One vehicle’s issues were corrected with tires and the alignment, but the other was slightly more difficult. We had taken this one in for an alignment check a couple weeks ago because it was pulling to the right. After running the test, they determined it would be better for us to replace the tires and then they could run the test again if new tires didn’t correct the problem. So, that’s what we did. We replaced the tires, but it was still pulling to the right. After running the test again, the alignment was showing to be in an acceptable range. However, after two technicians and a manager had driven the car, they could tell that there was still something off. They swapped the front tires to make sure they weren’t defective. Then they raised it up again and zeroed out the alignment. This seemed to improve it but I didn’t fully correct the pull.
Their last suggestion was to take it to the dealership and let them run a diagnostic test on it with their equipment to see if it could be the electronic rack and pinion. The steering wheel and the alignment show that everything is going the right direction. But their suspicion is that something in the computer is off and even though the vehicle is driving straight, the computer thinks it is drifting left so it is correcting to the right. What they have done so far has greatly improved the problem, but if it gets worse, we will have to take it into the dealership.
When it comes to our spiritual lives, the problem is more urgent. It’s not something we can put off and hope that it doesn’t get worse. Our nature is a sinful. Our natural bent is away from God. We will never make it to Him on our own. So, we can make ourselves look good on the outside. We can try to be disciplined enough to be good people. We can even go to church, sing the songs, and surround ourselves with good people. But none of that corrects the problem on the inside: our sinful nature. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”  All our striving leads to death. Wea re incapable of correcting our drifting heart. We need a new heart and the Holy Spirit.
Ezekiel 36:25–27 says, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
In salvation, God, through the Holy Spirit, gives us a new heart with new desires, and He causes us to walk in the right direction; toward Him. We cannot do it on our own. We need Him to lead and guide us to follow Him. Let us trust the Spirit to lead us toward Christ. And may we pray that others would be transformed by God to find life.

-Kendall Harris