Life can get me down. Sometimes I just run out of gas. I wind up in a desert. Prickly cacti. Licking lizards. Hot rocks. The burning sun. The whole blue sky baking down.  Sometimes I get restless here. Wanna go somewhere. Can’t sit still. I gotta move. But I can’t, because I’m out of gas. I used it all trying to leave the desert. It’s just too large, too endless, for me to get out on my own tank. I need to fill my tank.

So what do I do? My car’s been taken away. My magnifying glass burned up my map. My shoes have melted to the road. And my canteen water is gone. It’s hard to show a smile in the shadow of a vulture.

With everything stripped away, a revelation strikes me. At least, at the very least, I have life. Somehow, I’m alive. I’m thankful for that. I have thoughts and words that float up to the Father. I’m thankful for that. I have dreams and ambitions God gave me to grow. I’m thankful for that. I have a whole busload of friends on the road behind me, all of us broken down together. I’m thankful for them. I don’t have much. But I have life. And there’s nothing better.

Somehow, the thankful prayers fills my tank full. And I realize my car was never meant to run on gas. It’s meant to run on Him. He alone supplies my every need. And that’s good. Because I am a terrible driver, having ended up in this desert, so far away from where I wanted to go.

Funny, I think that’s where He wanted me to be, to live with my tankfull.

“I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:11-13)