What’s the problem with a squeaky wheel? Is it that it is squeaky, that it makes a noise we find unpleasant, perhaps even a noise that grates on our ears? Or is it that a squeaky wheel is in some sense a dysfunctional wheel, a wheel that no longer does what it was made to do?

In my thinking the two problems – the attention-getting sound and the dysfunction – that make the squeaky wheel a problem. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” so that we can turn our attention to what we’re trying to accomplish rather than to the means by which we’re trying to accomplish it.

Reading Friedrich Hayek’s essay, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” I ran across this quotation from Alfred North Whitehead. Normally, I’m not a fan of Whitehead (given his connection to process theology), but I find this exactly to the point:

It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

When I’ve driving down the road a (literal) squeaky wheel gets my attention. I start worrying about my car. Is something wrong with my tire? With my brakes? With the CV joint? Do I need to stop and get it fixed? Can I find a shop that can give me an accurate diagnosis in a timely and affordable manner? If I get a diagnosis, will they be competent to fix it? If I don’t stop and give it attention immediately, will my car break down so that I’ll be stuck far from any services?

All the time I am thinking about the squeaky wheel I am not able to give as much attention to other factors. Am I on the right road? Am I driving the legal speed limit? What are the cars around me doing?

Staying in my car we can take Whitehead’s observation a different direction (leaving the wheel behind). When I was first learning to drive I had to pay attention to every detail. My bodily attention was stressed by just a short drive: my attention is limited and having to give explicit and constant attention to so many things wore me out. With practice, however, I became a more skilled driver. Part of being a more skilled driver was making my driving more automatic, less needy of focused attention on so many things at once.

In the course of being a Christian over forty years now, I have had many occasions in which I experienced conviction of sin and the felt need for repentance. As I dealt with my sin I recognized the need to beware of temptation and the occasions for temptation that would lead me the wrong way. At first, this new awareness required close attention on my part. Over time the combination of three things lessened my need for close attention:

1. A sustained desire to not sin.
2. Practice resisting temptation, i.e., gaining experience resisting this particular kind of sin.
3. The presence of supports that make sinning less natural. These supports might be practices I take up (prayer, engagement with scripture, serving others) or persons who come alongside me (fellow Christians, the Holy Spirit).

Resisting sin is not the end of the Christian life: life with God and living out love for God and neighbor is the point. The less focused attention I have to give on resisting sin, the more my resistance becomes automatic, the more focused attention I can give to my life with God and loving God and neighbor.

As a pastor, one of my jobs is to help my people experience these three things in their lives. Given that job, how does my being a “squeaky wheel” in their life help or hinder my work?

It might be that by calling for their attention, I enable them to focus on the message directed at them by the Holy Spirit. The more my “squeakiness” is about me, drawing attention to me or making me the center of attention, the less likely, however, that my “squeakiness” will be a help to them. If I truly want to help people, I will need to find ways to deal with my own issues, particularly my felt need for attention and affirmation, that don’t impair their ability to hear the Holy Spirit. Perhaps I can point at John the Baptist here. When people encouraged him to be envious of Jesus’s greater success in drawing a crowd John’s response was, “He must increase, I must decrease.” John’s purpose was to prepare the way for Jesus. He’d done that. He’d been successful. His continued success was not dependent on drawing people to give their attention to him, but to direct their attention to Jesus.