When I lived in Colorado, I owned an older Jeep Wrangler. The great thing about older cars is they have way fewer parts to deal with and they are easier to fix than the newer ones. The downside is that those parts seem to break more frequently. As the owner of that Jeep, I learned a lot about fixing cars. Thankfully, YouTube was always there for me. In my earlier years, this was not always the case.
In my late teen years, I drove a Nissan 200sx. It was a fun car to drive and this particular one had a knob that allowed me to change the color of the gauges from blue to green. It was awesome. It was a very reliable car that always got me where I needed to go until it didn’t.
One night a few of my friends and I decided to go to the beach. The drive there was uneventful. We got there, found a parking spot, and headed out to the beach. We spent some time out there and when we were ready to leave, headed back to the car. When I got there, I opened the car door, got into the driver’s seat, and turned the key. Nothing. I tried again, and again, but nothing. No noise, no clicks, nothing. One of my friends had the brilliant idea that maybe it was the starter and by hitting the starter with a hammer, it may start.
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This plan sounded easy enough but there was one problem. You could only reach the starter from under the car and the car was only about 6 inches off of the ground. No problem! We jacked the car up using the jack and I crawled under. I located the starter and started hitting it, obviously not knowing exactly what I was doing.
That’s when things went from inconvenient to really bad in a split second. I saw the car wobble on the jack and I knew I had to get out quick. I tried to get out from under the car but didn’t make it before the jack fell over and the car came down with full force on my head and chest. Thankfully I was able to get out from under the car and ended up with nothing more than a major headache. I don’t remember what was actually wrong with the car except that it was definitely not the starter. I made a lot of mistakes that night and because of those mistakes, I ended up in considerable pain.
That night I was frustrated, in a hurry, and extremely impatient. I was faced with a problem that made me angry and so when presented with the opportunity to hit my car with a heavy object, I went for it. I rushed in with a hammer when I really needed several very different tools and experience working with cars.
I have had the first five paragraphs of this post written out for a few weeks now. I keep thinking I know where to go with it or I have some thought to share so I start writing. A few minutes later, I highlight everything and hit delete. Every lesson I try to pull from this experience feels like a stretch or like I am trying to put words in God’s mouth to create some sort of whisper from this moment. But the truth is, outside of the practical lesson of, “Never get under a car that isn’t safely lifted,” there wasn’t one. This was not some formative burning bush or whisper after an earthquake moment in my life*. From my perspective, it was just a series of bad decisions that I made that caused me some pain.
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Am I suggesting that God wasn’t speaking? No, I am declaring that I wasn’t listening. I was angry that the car wouldn’t start, that the hammer trick didn’t work, that the car fell on my head, that my friends were no help at all, and that I was stuck in that parking lot for way longer than I wanted to be. Once the car got started, I was still angry. I drove home angry, I went to bed angry, and I probably woke up the next day with that same anger. I wonder what I would have heard if I had invited the Lord into that situation. I wonder what he was trying to tell me.
Would he have whispered, “Don’t miss this moment?” Would he have encouraged me to slow down and take it all in? Would he have reminded me of His glory and splendor by guiding my eye to the night sky and filling my nose with the aroma of the salty air? I wish I knew the answer to that question. The truth is, the Lord is always speaking to us. He speaks through every experience and every moment. But, we have to show up. We have to pay attention. We have to listen for his voice. I didn’t show up that night and I still wonder what he was trying to say.
Thankfully, He is still speaking through that moment and today, He is telling me to constantly listen for his voice. But I still wonder what he had for me then. Today, listen for what God is saying to you. Don’t miss an opportunity to let him speak to your heart. What is God saying to you today?
*Check out the stories of Moses (Exodus 3) and Elijah (1 Kings 19) to see some of the ways God speaks to his people.
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