God's grace when we flip out

I have been stuck up here working on a major boiler replacement for a nuclear power plant on the coast of Lake Huron.  The work is long and the time is boring.  As the job continues to stack up delays, I have stopped counting the days until I can get out of here.
The churches here have very limited attendance so I go to my home church online. www.eastsidepres.com  It both makes me feel more and less isolated.  I see familiar people which helps me, but I have no real contact with any of them and that makes me feel alone. The time I do spend with church has become critical to me.  Worship, I have found, is almost as critical to a whole human existence as breathing is.  We were spiritually designed for group worship.  It is part of what we will do for eternity.
This leads to a week that could have either been a disaster or something entirely different.   The word in worship this particular week was about Lot and really reminded me of several things.  First  about self-gratification and how many ways we seek that out.  It was a very appropriate point made by my pastor Mark Auffarth.  I have somewhat always thought of Lot as a gutless compromiser more than a man that just wanted the best for himself above everything else.  Then it rooted into the sin of pride that to me is the mother of all sins. It is pride that deceives us into further sin thereby we have pride before we commit any other sin.  It is the birth giver to sin.  Lastly, it reminded me of a blog post I wrote a few years ago about patience.

You can read that here if you would like,  https://bobslaundryroom.blogspot.com/2015/12/patience.html

Patience is probably the virtue Lot needed and that in contrast Abraham cultivated.  Patience teaches us to trust God and to wait.  It is the antidote to self-indulgence and pride.

Truly, I hate being gone from home.  I especially hate being in Canada.  But God has been so good to me this summer.  Like this last week.

Two weeks ago this coming Friday the starter on my car failed.  Fortunately, God guided me into buying a car for Mary with a manual transmission.  Then fortunately she used her youngest child charms to convince me into giving her my nicer, newer, and better car.  Because of this the following the saga that began with losing a starter ended up being a great lesson in patience and trust that I just so really enjoyed to the core of my being.  Okay I lied.  At the time I hated every second of it.

Like I said, the starter quit, but I did indeed have a manual transmission so the old 2005 Mini Cooper could be bump started.  The car being in any kind of working order was an absolute must because I am working 6:30 pm to 6:30am 7 days a week, need to sleep all day, and could not possibly take the car to be fixed or do it myself.  So I was good with bump starting the car twice a day for as long as I had to.  God was not going to get me with not answering my prayer about holding this bucket of bolts together until I could get out of the hell hole known as Canada.  If He was not going to perform His magic I was going to endure and find work arounds.

Then Sunday rolled around.  On the way into work, just as I was arriving, my speedometer blinked off and then on again which seemed rather odd.  My gut sank a little bit. That night (Monday am) I got off work a little early around 6:00am.  My relief tech helped me push the car and get it going and I headed for home.   I made it perhaps 3 miles from the plant and then all the gages died, then the radio quit, lastly the headlights went out, and the engine quit.  

I was able to get my relief to come get me and take me back to the plant.   When the auto parts store opened at 9:00 I would go get a new battery. Many parts stores in the US open at 7:00am so I was not pleased at losing several hours of sleep.  My co-worker took me there (about 20 miles away) where I bought a new battery.  I was guessing it was the battery because the battery in the car was 4 years old and with the failure of the starter I assumed it had been put over the edge.  Seriously, who would think the alternator ( which only had 40,000 miles since replacement) and the starter would die within days of each other?   I put the battery in the car and it had plenty of juice like there was zero problems.  We bumped off the car again and I drove home with no trouble.  Fortunately at my apartment I park on an incline so I can start the car without a push.  I just let it start rolling a bit, pop the clutch and presto! 

I drove back to work that night with the starter still not working, but everything else was fine. Tuesday AM and we really had nothing to do so I left work at 3:00 am.  This time I drove for about 30 minutes and then the gages died, the headlights went out, and I rolled to a stop along the side of the road.  Except this time I was too far out to get help, plus my relief would not even be out of bed until 5:30 am.  
Rural Ontario is the definition of rural.  There is no Uber, no Lyft, no taxis. I was too far from anything to walk anywhere. Nothing is open at night. Even wrecker services can only be called and woken up by the police in the middle of the night.  I was stuck.  It was then that I flipped out.  I reached my breaking point.  My urge for self-gratification broke out and I dumped out a stream of bitter epithets at God that I am ashamed of now.  I even called and woke Melanie up and told her I had no idea why I believed in someone as useless to me as God.  What was the point in these decades of self-brainwashing that there was some spirit up there actually interested in me?  From my vantage point at the moment, wallowing in unanswered prayers, it certainly did not seem like any of that could be true.

Then this I recalled to my mind therefore I have hope.  It is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed.  Great is His faithfulness.  His mercies are new every morning.

I asked God for forgiveness and waited for daylight.  After the sun came up I thought perhaps with all of the power turned off the engine would not really need much to keep going.  The car only needed just enough electrical supply to make sparks and to power the computer.  I also happened to be on a slight downhill.  The downhill was in the wrong direction, but a car bump starts in reverse also.

Well, the car started and ran well enough for me to drive back to my apartment.  I called the local garage.  The owner said he had 3-4 days of work piled up which was not what I wanted to hear.  I asked if he rented cars or knew of a car rental agency, because our project is critically behind and everyone being at work was critically important.  He said he knew for a fact that there were no rental cars in Wingham.  He rented cars, but was the only one in town that did and all his were out.  I braced to call work and tell them I might be missing a few days.

Then the garage called back and gave the number of Enterprise Rent-a-Car in Listowel which is about 35-40 minutes away.  I called and no one answered.  I had already looked all over for a rental agency, but this one had never turned up.   The agencies I did find had no car. Inspired, I looked up the website, found, and reserved a car.  The tension eased a bit.
I called Melanie again and confessed my impatience and lack of trust and horrible venting in anger.  I just lost my marbles for a bit.  There is a lot of stress in working 12 hours a day 7 days a week in a foreign country that is still in pandemic lockdown.  I was making a turn around and beginning to repent and trust.

Next, I took the car right down to the repair shop to ensure I got on the list.   I mentioned all I would need to do is find a way to get to Listowel and get the rental car.  They immediately offered to drive me over there, but it would not be until 11:30am.  By this time it is 8:30am and I have been awake since 2:30 the previous day having slept only 3 hours due to Monday's fiasco.

So I rushed back to the apartment (10 minute walk) and think maybe I can sleep until 11:15.  Some sleep is better than none.  I managed to sleep 30 minutes, but I was so paranoid about missing my gracious ride to Listowel that I couldn't get more even as sleep deprived as I was.  At this point I have the jittery overtired feeling and probably am not making the best judgement calls.

The man from the garage was a fellow Presbyterian in heritage and we had a nice conversation on the way  to Listowel, but the Enterprise Rent-A-Car called before I got there saying they did not actually have a car.  I begged.  The agent had mercy and said he would do some checking around.  He called back a few minutes later with news that Enterprise would have a car delivered from Toronto. It would be mid-afternoon until the car arrived.  Given that I had the ride and was on the way I had no choice but to just be dropped off in town.   

The driver dropped me off on Mainstreet of Listowel which was about a half mile or so from the rental agency.  I walked 1/4 of a mile to a Tim Horton's and went in to get a cup of coffee.  Then I found out about the new law in Ontario that forbids restaurants from allowing unvaccinated people to sit in their places of business and even drink a cup of coffee.   I am vaccinated, but I did not have that silly CDC card with me.  In a free world we don't need papers for basic business transactions like the essential of getting food do we?  Welcome to the new version of Whites Only in the world.  Maybe even more paranoid..the new mark of the beast.

Anyhow, what it really meant to me was being totally exhausted and unable to sit down.  It had rained so everything outside was wet.  However, at this point I am just leaning on God and looking to Him to say I can do this with Your help.  I will trust You and be patient and see where this all goes.  I can wait and I will wait.  Honestly?  I have to wait so why should I have an attitude about it?

I eventually made my way to the rental agency and found they are housed/hosted in a body shop business.  Nice enough is that the body shop has several waiting areas and one was fairly private.  It was 2:00 and the agent told me that car had left an hour ago and should arrive within the hour.  I managed to get about 30 minutes more sleep.  It turned out that someone misinformed the agent.   The car did not show up until 4:30 PM.

By the time I got my paper work done it was 5:00pm.  I had been awake for the most part for 26 hours and I had to be back at work in 1 1/2 hours and I am at that point 1 1/2 hours from work.  Off I go and get back to work.

Once a work I am blessed with a slow night.  I pull the nightshift manager aside and tell him that I probably should not be at work because I have been up for 28 hours and probably should be in the "Not Fit For Duty" category.  Basically that means that nuclear components, myself, and others are endangered by my lack of sleep.  He says there will not be any activity for several hours and he would be more than happy if I just went to my car and took a nap.  He would come get me when they needed me.  I got about 2 blissful hours of sleep.

I got out of my nice Honda Civic which was like a luxury car next to that old Mini Cooper and walked into the office trailer.   There on my desk was this huge fresh made burrito.  When one is extremely without sleep eating some high energy food is way better than coffee.  One of the machinist techs had gone out to buy food and bought burritos for everyone.

In the end, this shift worked right up to the end of schedule and I did not leave until 7:00 am making my sleep time time over the previous 48-50 hours at around 4 hours.  I headed for home and amazingly did not get groggy on the drive.   I finally arrived at my apartment and flopped down into blissful sleep.

The car repair went very well.  Due to all the silly actions by government during the pandemic there are car part shortages all over.  This panned out to my advantage.  For one, the alternator on my car was not bad.  There was simply a loose wire on the back of it.  Then there were several other cars that they had to delay repairs for because they could not find a part for them that did not take several days to get.  My miracle was that they were able to get my starter from a nearby town and bump up the repair by two days.

By the time of writing this everything is back in order.   My biggest concern in capping this off was dropping of the rental car and getting all the way back to my new apartment which is a full hour and 15 minutes from the rental agency.  Yes, I forgot to mention that in the middle of this fiasco I had planned to move to a new apartment so my lease ran out on the old one. The new apartment is much closer to work.  It costs me about $1600 CAD less per month to rent too.  God was really good in letting me find this place.

The moral of the story is this.   God will regularly give you and me more than we can bear.  He does not want self-sufficient perfect people.  Why would people with no needs need God?  How would we know joy without pain?  Jesus came to save sinners.  He came to help those that have sin problems far greater than they have any concept of being able to handle.  He makes people struggle their whole lives with sin, or fear, or trust problems.  He helps us by not allowing our lives to be perfect.  He helps by bringing troubles that overwhelm us and force us to seek Him out.  

Yes, some would say that even in a somewhat small matter of a car breaking down in a foreign country during a pandemic, where I don't know a soul or where to go to get help, that it is pretty clear that God does not exist or if He does that He does not give a rats butt about what we are concerned with.  In the heat of such trouble I would be inclined to agree, which is also a failing God helps me with.  However, it is very far from being true.

In the process of what I went through here is what I do believe God did for me.
He taught me that my plans are subject to His plans. 
I do not have control of anything.  He does
He gave me a place to bump start my car when I was alone.
He gave me available help when I  really had to have it. 
He brought to my mind scripture when I most needed it and was totally flipped out.
He gave me a wife that listens to my almost incoherent raging and waits for me so come back to my senses.
He taught me to rely on the best virtue there is. Patience.
He brought me to an honest repair shop that went out of their way to help me and give me a ride to a town 40 minutes away and not charge me a dime for it.
He fed me food that I had not even remembered that I needed.
He helped me with a rental car agent that was willing to go out of his way to get me a car when they were sold out.
He lined up parts and repairs to be complete in just a few days.

In all this, he blocked me from being self-gratified and able to handle this all on my own.  He struck down my independence and taught me to relax and trust.  Maybe you think this could happen to anybody whether they believe in God or not.  I totally agree.  It happens every day.  God makes the sun to shine on all fields and rain to water the ground for everyone and not just those that prayed for it. The difference being that all the things God does to care for His creation every day gets ignored or is hidden from those that do not believe.

So this week was one of my more blessed weeks.  A really good week all in all.