This past Tuesday the electrical system in my car began to go haywire. All the gauges began to randomly light up, the dashboard signals sounding off, and the interior light turning on and off. It was funny at first until I realized it wasn’t going to stop. I had never seen my car act in this manner. The longer the commotion the more convinced I was that my car was possessed!!! Later that night I was driving down 610, and all these features began to act out again. It was like someone was flipping a light switch in my car. By the time I arrived home, my tension was through the roof. I even started to stress about how long will this take to get fixed, and HOW MUCH will it cost?
It was only Tuesday night, but I was already dead dog tired from the previous 48 hours. I just so desperately wanted to crawl into bed and go to sleep. So I did. It was 11:15pm, and slid into my spot and curled up into the fetal position. I was out like a light (pardon the pun about the car light) until…….2:59am a car alarm was blarring in my cul-de-sac. I jumped up out of bed convinced it was my wife’s minivan alarm. She jumped up too to find her keys to turn it off. Seconds later, she returned screaming IT IS YOUR CAR!!!!
I hurried for my keys to turn it off. It then realized this probably linked to the dashboard sensors that were chirping earlier. By this time, my adrenaline was jacked through the roof. I am thinking to myself how I am going to calm down enough to return to sleep. The next 30 minutes seem to crawl. Finally I began to slide back into a sleep until….HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK!!!!!!!!!!! My alarm was going off again. I shut it off, and then five minutes later it was sounding again. I realize sleep was over for the night so now I got dressed, and was trying to think of where I could go to ditch my car (forever!!!!). I thought to myself (after 3 hours of sleep) that parking it at WAWA or Giant wouldn’t work because eventually the police will be called. So I just got in the car and started driving around Stafford at 3:30am in the morning.
I ended up in the church parking lot. I figured as long as I had the keys in the ignition the signals and chirping was only inside the car. That sure beats the outside horn. I was sitting there for about 30 minutes until a truck pulls up in the parking lot. I was thinking to myself who would be here this early, don’t they know we are not open for business. Wiping the sleep from my eye, I realized it was Todd Pierpoint (One of our committed members of MABC). He came over to my car to find out why I was there so early. I told him the account of the night. He persisted that I take his truck to my house to go back to sleep of which I softly replied, “I CANNOT GO BACK TO SLEEP NOW!!!!!!” It was now time to go workout. I then asked him, ”What are you doing here?” He said, “Pastor we pray on Wednesday mornings at 5:00pm.” I grunted back, “Oh”. I knew I couldn”t even pray with the state I was in.
Later that morning, i dropped my car off to get repaired. The automotive people called me hours later to share with me they had to order a new sensor. It would be two days before it could get fixed. I told them they can keep my “devil car” because it was not coming home until its fixed. I blamed the reason on giving my neighbors a good night sleep.
When reflecting on this challenge while studying Daniel 2 made me laugh outloud. We often think all trials are from the enemy because they try and test us. But if the result of trials is to draw us closer to Jesus and to reveal where are trust and maturity really is, then what if it was from God. The nation of Israel was conquered by Babylon as a consequence to their rebellion. They were not victims in this new arrangement as slaves to the Pagan King. They were captured by the enemy because God allowed it. It created the tension…who will I trust? Where will I turn? Who will be Lord?
It left me thinking…was my car saga from God or the enemy? Or was it an opportunity for me to put my eyes on God instead of myself. Our spiritual maturity sure reveals when facing adversity. Are you growing in the area of humility? The alarm went off for me. I still have a ways to go!
