Running on Empty?

27th September 2023. The phrase has a whole new meaning for me since I changed to driving an electric car seven years ago. My first Nissan Leaf only had a range of about 90 miles, so “Range Anxiety” was a common affliction when going any distance. Locating chargers was not a problem with electronic help in car and on app, but would they be the type to fit my charging socket? Would they accept the payment methods I had available? Would there be a queue of intending users, each likely to take at least 45 minutes on a full charge? And would they be working? Nowadays I have a later model which has a much greater range, and I do fewer long-distance journeys, so most charging is done using the device fitted on my drive.

Back in the day, I mainly drove an old petrol car, and my range anxiety was due to the fact that I struggled to make ends meet and was always close to running out of gas. My first car – a Morris Minor – had a mechanical fuel pump, which clicked away, ever more rapidly when fuel levels were very low. I recall the dread that sound filled me with! On one occasion in the 1970s I was driving from Coventry where I had spoken at a Youth meeting at the church I grew up in. Anxiety grew as I knew I was low on fuel again, and I was praying hard to be led to a petrol station. Soon, I found one near Nuneaton, and when I opened the flap over the fuel-filler cap, there was a strip of paper on which was written “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever”. That verse from ‘Hebrews’ filled with me with relief, mixed with remorse for having become so anxious. I never knew who placed that text there; maybe a member of the youth group I had just visited. But to me they were an angel.

The thought of ‘running on empty’ has only just clicked in my mind to link with that same phrase being used by my late friend Cliff Cowling (featured in an earlier blog), who used it in a written testimony I discovered after his funeral, when describing his earler years at that church we attended in Coventry. There had been scant teaching on the Holy Spirit, and having become friends with Pentecostal Christians, he realised they had an inner sustaining power in knowing the Holy Spirit – a power he did not experience. He concluded he was “running on empty”. I am glad that was soon rectified, and Cliff became a great encourager, especially in supporting the Healing ministry.

While my journey in discovering and realising the presence of the Spirit does not fit into the traditional ‘Pentecostal’ sequence of Conversion > Baptism > Baptism in the Holy Spirit (as I outlined in my testimony book “My Late Harvest”), I am assured of His presence within me – striving within me if I am tempted to sin, enlivening the Word of God in me, revealing his gifts for service, and (more latterly) employing Tongues to effect physical healing and to dispel Satan’s oppression, temptation and accusation tactics. Potentially a ‘full tank’ to run on each day!