The Pulpit Speaks: March 28, 1959

An article written by my father, the Rev. C. Thomas Paige, as it appeared in the Tri-State Defender on the date shown.

A few days ago I saw a car that had run out of gas. The tires were up, the ignition switch was working, the starter was still buzzing each time it was turned on and everything else apparently was in shape for running.

A few days later, I saw a lady who was under the influence of alcohol, stretched out on the steps of a local establishment where alcohol was sold. People were stepping all around her but no one took pains to put her in a place where she would be protected from the weather and out of public sight. She, too, had “run out of gas.”

I know that there are those of you who will wonder how a person can run out of gas. Here it is: when a person or a machine runs out of the substance that makes them go, he has run out of gas. I do not know why this lady had allowed herself to sink to such a level. Somebody passing that way might have said that she was in the midst of family troubles, or money troubles, or any number of difficulties that had led her to partake of some beverage to the extent that she found herself in that condition.

I do not know what caused her to be in that state but I do know one thing: there are indications in one’s life as well as there are indications in the average car which tells you when the fuel is getting low. When the indicator reaches a certain point in the car, a person will try to find his way to the nearest gas station. By the same token, there are indications in each of our lives which will tell us that the gas is getting low.

Whenever one finds himself falling prey to the desires of the altar of sin frequently he is on his way. When the hand drops over too close to the left it is very evident that the gas is getting low. By the same token, whenever a person finds himself visiting his little altar of sin, in all probability he is on his way. Then the question arises: how does one know when the gas is getting low in human activities? The gas is getting low when one loses consciousness of his moral and spiritual concepts to the point that they no longer matter.

The very fact that somewhere down the line a person loses the desire to want to be somebody or make a worthwhile contribution to humanity is evidence that he has run out of gas or that his gas is getting low. It is easy enough to pull the hills of adversity or temptation when somewhere, we can reach back and find the moral or spiritual fortitude that will enable us to rise up to every occasion.

In the life of the human, as in the life of the car, there is something that keeps us going. As long as there is gas flowing through the carburetor the car rolls merrily along its way. As long as there is moral and spiritual fortitude in each of us that gives us the will to want to be, we are able to move on.

But once we find ourselves having consumed all of the fuel that makes us want to go on or be, we, in all probability, will be just like the woman or that car: indifferent to what is going on about us and unconcerned about the attitudes of those who pass by.

Indifference is one of the keys to indicate to us that our gas is running low. Whenever a person becomes indifferent about himself, his mission, or his reason for being, he is on his way to running out of gas. In the presence of lowered resistance to the temptations of life one knows that he is slowly becoming incapable of coping with the great demands of life.

A car with a full tank of gas has no problems climbing hills or surmounting the mountains but when the gas starts getting low, these activities become a problem. This same thing is quite evident in the life of the human. As long as one finds himself morally and spiritually fortified, he has no real problem in making adjustments to the ever-changing phases of life. But once these things become more demanding, life takes on a new color and he finds that it takes a little more to live.

The forgoing is well brought out in the life of the Prodigal Son. At one time, he finds himself completely out of gas but then he goes back to the filing station (home), where his moral and spiritual insights are set aright and he come out a new person. So it must be with each of us. There must be a time and a place in each of our lives where we might go and be fortified against the hardships, temptations and the like of life.