Elusive

If you’ve seen last fall’s issue of the Small Batch, you may have seen a story about my 1948 Willy’s jeep.

Yesterday, I was tempted to sell it. Or light it on fire.

I bought it last summer and put countless hours of labor and several thousand dollars trying to get it running and driving. Recently I broke down and paid a local mechanic way too much money to fix the clutch. He even drove it back to my house from the shop for it’s virgin voyage to make sure it worked fine. Gutsy. But he made it back.

This brings me to yesterday. After bleeding the brakes (again), I pulled it out and drove it down the street. I’ve never learned to drive a manual transmission, so I was simply driving up and down our street trying to learn to shift gears and use a clutch pedal. All was going roughly well, until it died in my driveway. And would not start back up.

With some research, I discovered that I had fouled the spark plugs. So I went to the auto parts store 5 minutes away and bought a new set, replaced them all, and it fired right up. Back to driving.

Then it died again.

This time I had to push it 100 yards back home. Upon more searching, I found new problems: The battery isn’t charging, there is gas in the oil, and the oil pan has developed a major leak- a hole appeared out of nowhere.

Here is the part of the story where punching holes in walls sounds like a good idea.

After all the effort, time, and money, I keep running into more obstacles. The sense of accomplishment, enjoyment, and fun that I had been seeking in the finishing of this project was yet again elusive. Rather than taking the kids on a ride and buying ice cream, or showing up at a car show with a picnic lunch, I was bound to spend more hours laying on my garage floor. Rather than joy, I had the weight of disappointment and discouragement pushing me down. A bad April Fool’s joke.

This is my story. And it’s not really about a jeep.

I am not known as a passive guy. But evil likes to remind me of the misery of discouragement. After repeated beatings, I eventually grow passive. Hoping for the happy ending gets cruelly and repeatedly stamped out by evil, and eventually getting back up off the ground just doesn’t seem worth it. Hope starts to feel like a trap. It’s the hope that kills you, so they say.

Whether I try to pull myself up by my own bootstraps and keep charging, surrender to the discouragement and give up, or simply move on to something else that catches my eye, I am constantly tempted to manipulate my situation to avoid the pain of disappointment, rejection, and loss. That’s how it is with so many areas of life. Marriage. Parenting. Work. Projects. Even with God.

How long have I tried to force God to show up by faithfully reading or praying? How long have I intentionally not shown up, out of an assumption that his blessing is for others, but there isn’t enough for me? I get tired of wrestling, believing that there is blessing there for me at the end. I don’t want to keep going- the half nelson’s and arm-bars have worn me out. Jacob held on all night, even after getting his hip dislocated (Genesis 32), and only then did he demand a blessing from God.

I am challenged to not simply throw in the towel, but to lean in. Actually fix the jeep, and keep hope alive. But the discouragement is real. And again, its not just about the jeep.

This post doesn’t have a pretty bow. I’m intentionally leaving this one in the oily black mess now on my garage floor.

How do you also wrestle with God and life, and struggle to maintain hope?

How has evil beaten you down repeatedly, training you to become increasingly passive?

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Cody Buriff, Chief of Resources and Experiences