God is quite the funny guy.
I was at camp on Monday and I was talking about the car I am driving.
I made the comment that I thought that it was going to croak pretty soon.
Guess what…Tuesday on my way to camp, all the electrical gauges decided to go to zero.
So I called my dad as I was driving and we started discussing what might be wrong.
We though it could have been a fuse or something big.
Well a mile later, it turned out to be something big.
The whole electrical system shut off completely.
So there I was sitting on 169 (a pretty major highway in the twin cities) with a dead car and not a real clue what the problem was.
Being that I was on my way to camp I didn’t have time to dork around and call a tow truck.
So I started calling some people that I work with to see if they could come pick me up.
I got a hold of Chandler and he was able to come get me.
As I sat in his car on the way to camp, I had a smile on my face.
I don’t know why, but I was kinda laughing at the incident.
I just couldn’t believe that the day before I said that I thought my car was going to croak and then it did.
I got to the church were we having camp at that night and then the reality of what happened hit me.
My car was sitting on the side of the road.
What the heck am I going to do?
Is my car going to be towed?
Am I going to get a ticket?
These were just a few of the thoughts that were going through my head.
I was supposed to be getting ready for camp, and I couldn’t get my mind off of my dead car.
Then something weird happened…I would encourage you to give me feedback on this issue because I am super curious how other people would handle this.
One of my group members asked if he could pray for the situation.
I quickly jumped in and said I don’t think we should pray for my car.
I told him that I thought there are many other things in the world that could use prayer before a car. I didn’t want to do this God-please-fix-my-car-selfish-prayer-thing.
I looked at this car situation as an inconvenience, but it wasn’t a life or death situation.
I don’t like to pray selfish prayers.
I was more thinking that we could pray that His will would be done in this.
I just wanted God to keep my eyes open to everything going on in the process so that if I saw a situation that I could shine for him, I would be able to step up to the plate.
I felt that by me praying for my car to be fixed, that I would be making my self the center of the universe in a way.
You know…like…God help me…I don’t care about your plan…but this is such an inconvenience to me that I need you to fix this in order to help my plan.
What if I looked at this through Gods eyes?
What would he want to come from this.
Maybe through this he wanted me to talk to John the guy at Super America.
Or get Chandler and Heather together last night for 3 hours to talk.
Or he wanted me to learn patience.
Or he wanted someone reading this to realize something.
I am guessing (and I may be wrong) that God didn’t just want my car to break down so that he could fix it.
There has to be something else in the equation.
He is in everything, but I need to focus on seeing through God’s eyes, rather than my own selfish eyes.
So with the help from a few friends, I finally got my car to the Super America Auto Body last night around 1.
Chandler let me crash at his place since it was so late.
He dropped me off this morning at 8 when the place opened up.
Turns out, my alternator is shot and I need a new one.
$200 dollars later, I know the problem and have a part.
John says all we need to do is unhook the battery, take out 8 or so bolts, and unplug some wires and we will be ready to put in my nice shiny new alternator.
As I am sitting here waiting for Aaron, a friend that is going to help me change my alternator, I started to talk to John.
He works long hours to support his two kids.
He called his kids a blessing from God.
His son is 7 and his daughter is 1.
He told me that he doesn’t go to church.
He says Sundays are for relaxing.
So he often goes to the golf course.
He really likes the beauty of the golf course.
He really like the grass and the trees, which he pointed out that God created.
So in his own way he is spending time with God.
It makes me happy that he said that rather than saying that he goes to church because that is what you do on Sundays.
He told me he didn’t grow up going to church and that he wonders what it would be like if he would have.
We somehow got on the topic of fundraising and he told me stories of when he gives money to his son to donate to the Salvation Army buckets and other fundraising events. I cant remember everything we talked about but the whole time I was just amazed at how this “non-Christian” seemed to be more of a like Jesus in some ways than some “Christians.” It was kinda interesting.
Time to fix my car….
…Ok I’m back (90 minutes later)…
What a crazy 24 hour period…I talked to Chandler and Heather for a few hours under a beautiful starry night.
I met John.
I got to bond with Aaron.
My alternator is in.
My car works.
Nobody died.
The world is still spinning.
God is amazing!
It just blows me away what just happened to me all because of my car breaking down.
