Is Your Throttle Attached to Your Wheels?

Being Wide Open Throttle is about going places. You twist the throttle or press the pedal and your vehicle is put in motion toward a goal. But there’s something really obvious about that vehicle that we usually overlook.  It is a complex machine that is made up of many moving parts that are all very, very different, but still work together toward the common aim of moving you and your stuff safely down the road. Those different parts are so intertwined, and so interdependent, and so good at working together that we view the car as a seamless, single object rather than as a bunch of different parts.

The Christian walk is very much like this. You can twist your throttle all you want, but if you haven’t bound yourself to your bike, and your bike to your wheels, then you aren’t going anywhere.  Binding yourself to other Christians, who are different than you, but who also are united to you in common purpose is invaluable to that walk. Paul talks about this in depth where he argues that a body needs it’s different parts, but then argues that each of those parts make up the same body. (1 Corinthians 12:12-31).

One great illustration of this is found in the story of three Jews with the Babylonian names of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Daniel 3:1-30). They resisted a king who had required them by law to bow down and worship a giant idol.  If they did not worship as he had decreed they would be thrown into a deadly heated furnace. All three men were unique individuals. And all three men were able to bind together and withstand the King’s evil requirement. They were able to do this because they were united in their love, respect, honor, fear and trust for the one true God. The king did, indeed, have them thrown into the furnace.  Miraculously, God protected them. But it is interesting to note that they were willing to go into the furnace and stand up for their God even if he chose not to save them (Daniel 3:16-18). It’s unlikely that they could have made such a resistance without being bound to each other and to their common God. They demonstrated with perfection Solomon’s wisdom that when three separate cords are woven together into a single strand, they become very hard to break (Ecclesiastes 4:12).

Are you Wide Open Throttle?  Have you bound yourself to others who are different from you, but united with you in purpose? Your Wide Open Throttle can’t take you anywhere if you aren’t.