About a month ago, I was sitting in a meeting, and I received a text message from my oldest son, “Dad, I need your help, my jeep won’t start.”
I need to pause right here and explain something to you about myself. I respect and admire those people who are good with their hands and seem to be able to fix any problem. These people with the best intentions will always tell me, “Oh yeah, YouTube has a video on that, and you can fix it yourself. For some reason, I am not a fix it yourself type of guy. When I attempt to fix even the simplest of problems, I somehow make it worse. I have often thought if I could have a redo in high school, I would have spent most of my time on the shop hall learning how to fix stuff. Maybe they told me when I was growing up and I wasn’t listening but as you get older you notice how often stuff you have breaks down.
Thankfully, my oldest son is better than his dad at trouble shooting what is wrong. When I arrived, he was on the phone with his friend, and they already had some options of what could be wrong. I immediately knew I was over my head. But we still could not get the jeep started! We had to tow it to a mechanic for help!
As I reflect on the new church-wide initiative this year, “Life change is a way of life.” God has me in a posture much like my son’s jeep that just won’t start. The spiritual posture is I need help. I don’t know about you but much of my daily life is working around issues which didn’t work out like I planned them to. I had plans or you can even call them expectations for my work, my marriage, my children, my finances, my friends, my health and the list goes on and on. And the bottom line is “My life is not going as I had envisioned”, or “life is different than what I thought it would be.” Most days I am confronted with a real-life issue (big or small) that demands my attention to fix or solve. A day never seems to go by where there is not a problem to solve or an issue to address. But what is concerning to me is not the issues and the demands of life, it is my response. I have been so conditional my entire life to be the fix it yourself guy. And you did notice the word choice didn’t you? FIX IT YOURSELF! When you fix it yourself what you are saying is, “I will figure it out by myself.” This thinking prohibits me from having the life changing posture, I need help. I don’t only need help from God, but I also need help from the community of people around me. These familiar verses resonate differently when I am in a posture of needing help.
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” - Proverbs 27:17
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fail, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he fails and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they will keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him, a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” - Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
About a month passes and my son’s jeep is still in the shop. I find myself in the fix it yourself mode. My oldest is leaving for college in the next couple of days, so I tell him to take my car to school. It’s a Friday morning and I am driving to meet a few of the men I do life with (my community). On the way I get a text from my mechanic, and it reads, “Done all I can do with the Jeep. I am not sure what is wrong with it.” Up to this point, in my mind it seems all too trivial to bother God about a Jeep. But in a moment of clarity, I walked into that meeting with my guys and said these words, “I need your help.” I don’t remember what I said after the word "help". All I remember is one of the guys started reading a familiar prayer in the Bible. As he was reading that prayer, I received a text message. The message read, “Your Jeep Lives!”. When I read those words, tears began to flow down my cheeks. I showed it to the guys who were with me. One of the guys got up from the table and walked over and gave me a hug. He whispered these words in my ear, “Chad, we are with you, and you are changing for the better!”
I felt very silly crying over a jeep working. And I do believe God is good whether the jeep ever started again. The circumstances we find ourselves in doesn’t change God’s character. But I do believe on that Friday morning, God was giving me a precious gift and it was not about a jeep being fixed. It was about me learning the humility it takes to ask for help. The change I was experiencing was not circumstantial, but a transformation of the heart! I pray you will join me this year on this spiritual endeavor of changing more and more into His image. It might begin with one simple word, “Help!”
“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 1:6