“We don’t understand it, but your muffler is disintegrating from the inside.”
For once, the description of the noise my truck was making actually matched the noise it made for the service technician. Usually, when you take a vehicle to the shop, it immediately begins behaving like a child in front of company.
“It was doing it all the way over here,” you say.
The mechanic starts the engine.
Silence.
The truck sits there looking innocent.
But Saturday it cooperated.
“Eventually,” the service man explained, “your muffler will completely disintegrate, and your truck will become very loud.”
There are at least two ways you know you are getting old. The first is when the phrase “your truck will become very loud” sounds more like a threat than a promise. When I was younger, a loud truck might have been impressive. Now I want my muffler to do exactly what its name implies: muffle. Loud and old do not mix well—whether we are talking about trucks, music, neckties, or people explaining their opinions at restaurants.
The second way you know you are old is Muzak. If you step into an elevator, a doctor’s office, or a car dealership and realize the gentle instrumental music playing in the background is the same song your parents once yelled, “TURN THAT GARBAGE DOWN!” about—you are old. Saturday, Muzak was playing while the service man described my disintegrating muffler.
There was no denying it.
I am old.
And suddenly I began imagining life with a loud truck. Would people hear me pulling into the church parking lot before they saw me? Could I lead a funeral procession in it? Would the Baptists think I had joined the youth group? Would the Catholics begin praying for me?
“How much will it cost to fix?”
It was going to be expensive. Apparently, disintegrating from the inside was not covered by the warranty. That phrase stayed with me. Disintegrating from the inside.
How is your muffler?
Because mufflers are not the only things that can look reasonably good on the outside while quietly falling apart where nobody can see.
People can do it too.
Discouragement is a kind of interior rust. You start with faith, hope, and love. But disappointment works on you. Frustration works on you. Anger works on you. Fear works on you. And if you do not continually center your life in Christ, the corrosion begins. Often the problem is not that God has abandoned us. The problem is that we have decided exactly how God ought to behave. We get a plan fixed in our heads, a result fixed in our hearts, and a timetable fixed on the calendar. Then, when God refuses to cooperate, we become discouraged. Slowly, quietly, something begins disintegrating on the inside.
And here is another thing I learned about mufflers: When they deteriorate on the inside, eventually they get loud on the outside. That may explain more about our world than we would like to admit. Public discourse has become a contest to see who can be loudest. Conversation has been replaced by competition. Listening has become a lost art. We no longer seem content to disagree with somebody; we must defeat them, embarrass them, label them, or shout over them. Maybe all that exterior noise is telling us something about our interior condition.
Maybe some of us need our spiritual mufflers repaired. There is a verse of Scripture that both comforts and confronts. Eight simple words that can aggravate people who are determined to stay loud and bring wonderful hope to those who know something inside them needs restoring:
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
—Psalm 46:10
Be still. Stop shouting. Stop insisting. Stop rehearsing everything that is wrong. Stop telling God how God ought to run the universe. Be still long enough to remember who God is—and who you are. Maybe faith, hope, and love are not restored by becoming louder. Maybe they return when we become quiet enough to hear God again.
I get it, Lord.
Will you help me repair my muffler?