Let me give an example from a couple years ago. I’ve changed
the oil in my vehicles for many years, way back to when I was sixteen. One
thing I like about the cars we have now is that all of them sit high enough
that I don’t even have to jack them off the ground to change the oil and
filter. Being OCD like everyone says I am, I even have a chart that lists all
the parts and tools I need for each of our vehicles. Anyway, I was changing the
oil in all of them a couple years ago and our Jeep Wrangler was the last to be
done. So far everything had gone smoothly and I was set to complete the work in
record time (I often time myself to see how fast I can do it). I removed the
drain plug and let the oil run out. I then reinstalled the plug. So far so
good. I then removed the old filter and installed the new one. Hey, this was
fantastic! All that was left was putting the new oil into the engine. That’s
all I had to do and the job was done. It’s simple. My dad used to let me do
that much when I was three. Come on, you just remove the filler cap on the
valve cover and dump in the necessary amount of oil. This part’s as easy as getting
yourself a drink of milk. At least it should be. You see, this particular oil
change is a big reason I have utmost respect for anyone who works on cars for a
living. Anything can and will go wrong.
I started to remove the filler cap on the valve cover and
something snapped. You know that sinking feeling you get when your perfect day
suddenly turns into a pile of poo? It’s an oil cap, a simple piece of round
plastic with a grippy side on top and treads on the bottom. All you have to do
is turn it and it comes out, right? Not today. Something inside the cap
snapped and now the top turned but not the part threaded into the valve cover! Now,
I’m no rocket scientist, but this was beyond comprehension. So I fiddled with
the thing for about five minutes, which doesn’t seem like a long time unless
you are unable to do some incredibly easy task in that period. Imagine how long
five minutes would feel if you were unable to remove the cap from the milk jug
as you sat at the breakfast table. All you want to do is eat your cereal, but
for some inexplicable reason you are unable to manipulate the little plastic
cap and remove it from the milk jug. Your five-year old is enjoying his
fruity-flavored loops of sugar, but you sit dumbfounded. Needless to say my
record-breaking pace was shot. That’s when I had to just step back for a
moment. I literally moved away, about two feet from the fender and just stared
at the stupid thing, flabbergasted and in disbelief that I couldn’t remove the
cap. I really became concerned that my incompetence had been revealed in other
ways I was as yet unaware of, so I checked to make sure I didn’t have my pants
on upside-down or something, but they were okay.
In my pause for sanity, I had an idea. There’s more than one
opening in the valve cover; I could just pull the PCV valve and dump the oil in
through that opening! Hah! I’ll show you, ya crazy cap! Renewed by my brilliant
problem-solving, I grabbed the PCV valve and pulled up. It broke off in my
hand. The piece with the hose connection just busted right off. Worse than
that, the PCV valve was still in the valve cover! My son, who had been
observing this entire evolution, started to back away from the vehicle not sure
if he would bust out laughing or just run. “That’s it!” I announced to the
neighborhood, “it’s time for lunch!”
As we sat before the lovely lunch my wonderful wife prepared
that day, we prayed as always. That day prayers were offered for me and the
Jeep. I appreciated both.
After the respite of lunch, my son and I headed back to do
battle. On my way through the garage I grabbed two of the most important things
from my toolbox; duct tape and “the persuader.” We all know duct tape; it fixes
almost anything. The other item is a big honkin’ screw driver; that cap was
coming off. With the application of a few feet of tape, the PCV valve was
fixed. My full attention then turned to the oil cap. I pried and I pried, and
suddenly everything went into slow motion, like when you find yourself falling
down the stairs. The oil cap flipped up into the air and rolled over eight
times before it disappeared (it happened so slowly I counted the rotations). Then
something shinny popped up and dropped right back down in the hole. NOOOOO!
I gave no thought to the cap. My immediate concern was the strange
metal object plummeting down into the valve cover opening. By this time I was practically
in the engine compartment, having leaped upon the motor in my attempt to
catch the metal piece, whatever it was. Luckily the huge bulge of duct tape
around the PVC valve softened my landing. So, with my face very near the
opening in the cover I realized it wasn’t an opening at all and the shinny
metal thing I saw flipping in the air was a small spring; it was laying right
there in the bottom part of the oil cap. I breathed a sigh of relief. My mind
then began to ponder the peculiar ways of engineers. Why would some very
intelligent person so complicate a simple cap as to make it two separate pieces
with a spring in the middle? My milk jug doesn’t require such a completely
over-engineered device. Well, I removed the spring and I must admit I was more
than a little tempted to see how far I could throw it, but I refrained from
such foolishness. Then I got a pair of needle-nose pliers, and fitting the ends
into the teeth of the piece of the cap remaining in the cover, I unscrewed the
oil cap. Moments later the oil was in, the bottom half of the cap reinstalled
and the engine was running. I set the spring and top part of the cap back in
place but let’s face it; they’re really only decoration at this point.
That’s not what I wanted to talk about today. I started,
intending to tell you about my most recent episode of working on this “family
fun car.” It needed front brakes and I’ve been putting off the job because of
the lingering cold, the incessant rain and the fact we don’t really NEED to
drive it. Disk brakes are more complex than an oil change, but I’ve done them
before on several different vehicles. I’ve even done drum brakes in my life and
those were like a puzzle. Fresh oil and good brakes are pretty important. If
you don’t change your oil you’ll eventually do some real harm to the engine. If
you don’t replace your brakes periodically, you’ll eventually do some real damage
to your vehicle, and probably someone else’s too. My son and I started on the
driver’s side and it went pretty smoothly. I only had to take the new pads off
twice to reposition or correct something I messed up, but soon it was back
together and the wheel reinstalled. I know by now that I should never feel very
confident when it comes to car maintenance, but I kinda did. After all, I knew
how the brakes on this particular make and model went together now. Nathaniel
jacked it up and took the wheel off. I then removed the bolts holding the
caliper and very soon the old, worn-out pads were laying on the driveway. They
had worn evenly and weren’t quite to the rivets, so I was happy. I put the new
pads in the caliper but then realized there was an issue. I couldn’t get the
caliper back into position. There are two pins that have to be able to slide
inside these rubber sleeves and the pins were not sliding at all. I spent the
next hour or so trying to free them. After failing at every attempt I started
trying to remove them without mangling the rubber sleeves. I preserved the
sleeves but the ends of the pins got mangled by my big pliers. So, it was back
to the parts store for new pins. With a little brake grease and the new pins,
the passenger side brakes were soon done and the wheel back on, job complete
except for the long clean-up process.
I was an absolute mess. I was covered in grease, brake dust
and grime. I mean it was on my head, my face, halfway up my arms. My work shirt
and pants looked like my oil-change rags. My hands were black; I think one of
my nostrils was plugged and I could only see out of one eye. Besides that, I
had two broken knuckles, sore knees, a large contusion on my left thigh and a
pinched nerve in my hand. But you know what, I saved a couple bucks.
So why am I telling you all of this? It’s not because I’m
advertising a new series of automotive how-to videos I’m hosting on-line. It’s
because I’m telling you that we need to depend fully upon Christ and the Holy
Spirit for recovery. There are some minor things I can do in the area of car
maintenance, but even for those I often need to look something up on-line or
seek some assistance, if not just for another set of hands. Almost all the time
I need parts and supplies. But for more difficult things, I take our cars to a
real mechanic who knows what he is doing.
People who struggle with any kind of issues, be it anger,
resentment, codependency, gossip, materialism, lust, drugs, alcohol,
relationships, health, etc often attempt to take matters into their own hands.
My father, who worked as an EMT
and paramedic for most of his life, says that many times people ignored or
hesitated calling about chest pain, assuming it was indigestion or something
that would just go away. In many cases, that delay cost their life. There are
some things you can do in recovery, but that is only the minor stuff. You
cannot recover on your own in a way that is lasting and anything more than
cross-over addiction.
If you’ve been in recovery for even a short time you know that
Step 1 basically says you’ve made a mess of things and are powerless to make it
any better. Life has gotten out of control, at least in some areas, and it is
adversely affecting you and the people around you. You’ve tried to hide the
problem(s), but that is getting harder and harder or maybe impossible. Look,
not being able to hide it is actually a good thing. As long as you can hide it,
it will continue and nothing will improve. People are still getting hurt, or
you’re setting them up for a more severe hurt, and you are increasingly
burdened with guilt and anxiety. You know you’ll eventually get caught and/or
do irreparable harm to yourself or someone else. Once it is out in the open,
however, you have to deal with it and other people who care can come along
beside you and help. God makes clear in His Word that admitting and confessing
your troubles, struggles, addictions, hurts, resentments and sins is the
starting point of healing. Consider 1
John 1:9 , “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Psalm 32:5 adds, “I acknowledged
my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden, I said, ‘I will confess my
transgressions to the Lord,’ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.”
Step 2 basically reminds us that only God can bring
restoration and recovery. God alone has the wisdom and power necessary for your
recovery, or the recovery of someone you care about who is struggling. There
are some very smart people who have plenty of ideas of how you can recover.
None of those people are able to be with you all the time, to be there in the
middle of the night when the urge comes and you are faced with either reaching
out to someone for help or hiding and indulging yourself. None of them have the
power to change your desires and thought process. Oh they can reason with you
and give you every good reason to change, but they cannot get inside your head
were the addiction torments you and change you, only God can bring relief like
that. And God cares enough about you to do it if you yield to His Spirit and
His Truth.
Step 3 is different in that the first two steps simply
remind you of some facts: who you are and who God is. In Step 3 you face a
decision based upon those facts. The decision is whether to actually begin to
yield to God’s perfect will for you or continue to fight against Him. In
fighting against Him you are technically fighting against yourself as well.
Think about it, we all know the songs and had the urges to be out there on our
own, the me-against-the-world mentality. Doing that brings us to the place of
addiction because it is a very self-centered ideology. We pursue anything and
everything we want and eventually find ourselves enslaved. Enslaved to some
practice or substance like alcohol or leisure, or whatever, but more so
addicted to the selfishness. That’s why we can do a little maintenance
on our own, like me doing a brake job on the car. We can shift away from our
practice or substance of choice, at least for awhile, but we will just shift
over to something else that will also become an addiction. And, like changing
the oil in the car, when we try to do recovery any way except God’s way, we’ll
have to keep doing it over and over in an endless cycle of ups and downs. Thus,
the addiction of living-for-self is actually a fight against ourselves as well
as a fight against God’s will for us.
For victory over whatever you are struggling against, you
need the professional, the Great Physician who is God. You don’t just need a
simple brake job so you can stop whatever it is that’s hurting you and/or
others. You need a complete inspection by your loving Heavenly Father who
designed you and formed you in the womb; Psalm 139:13 says, “for You formed my inward parts, You
covered me in my mother’s womb.” You need the people “Engineer and Mechanic”
who knows everything there is to know about you and your situation because
there is nothing hidden from Him; Hebrews
4:13 says, “there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all
things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” You
need the One who has all power and authority to hold back the enemy; Ephesians 6:10-11 says, “my
brethren, be strong it the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole
armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” You
need the Saviour who gives you a way of escape when temptation comes; 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No
temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man, but God is
faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but
with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to
bear it.” You need a “mind electrician” who can rewire your thoughts and
desires; Romans 12:2
says, “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will
of God.”
These are fundamental steps in true recovery because they
teach you to trust God and depend upon Him and His Word. I can change the oil
in a car, but I can’t rebuild the engine. I can change brakes on our Jeep, but
I can’t manufacture the parts. You and I may change some things about
ourselves, but we can’t heal ourselves or those we’ve really hurt.
God can.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Mark
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