I Feel A Little Silly

My car in its natural desert habitat.

This story is mostly me being stupid.

I Feel A Little Silly

Yesterday I got into my car with the intention of driving back to the University. I started it, shifted into reverse, and examined my surroundings in order to be sure that I wouldn’t run into any innocent pedestrians.

Then my phone rang.

Being the conscientious driver that I am, I killed the engine before answering it. My mother needed to know something or other, so I told her and then hung up.

Then I attempted to re-start my car. I discovered that the engine was entirely unresponsive. I turned the key, fed it some gas, and still the engine refused to even turn over.

After about two or three minutes of this, I got out and looked under the hood. Everything seemed to be fine there, so I got back in the car and tried to solve this conundrum.

I could not determine why the engine refused to cooperate. Had I somehow created an electrical problem? Was juice not flowing from the battery? I could turn on my headlights, so that didn’t seem to be the problem.

The car had worked just fine when I originally started it, what could I have possibly done to it by starting and stopping it like that?

Befuddled, I finally decided to give my dad a call. He was 2500 miles away, but he’s a mechanical expert. Being able to fix broken machinery is an extremely important part of farming, because farm equipment tends to be very old and overused He’s taught me a lot, but I will never reach the level of mastery he has attained through decades of practice.

He answered the phone and I heard a skill saw turn off. I began to explain to him my situation, when I discovered that I had neglected to shift the transmission back into park. In my hurry to answer my cell phone I had left out this all important step of call stopping.

I shifted from reverse back into park and the car fired right up.

I did all this while in mid-sentence with my father talking about my silly car, and had only been on the line with him about twenty seconds.

I told him to forget I’d called, and that the car was working perfectly now and that he could go back to sawing whatever it was he was sawing. I conveniently left out the details about why the car wouldn’t start and how I fixed it. I felt a little silly.

My dad then informed me that he had magically fixed it from afar over the phone lines. If you have ever wondered why I am the way I am you need only meet my father.

Sometimes when we face troubles in our lives, we may overlook an obvious solution. The thought never crossed my mind to be sure I was in park, because I didn’t believe myself to be capable of such a scatter-brained feat of stupidity.

Yet, that was the only solution that would have gotten my car started. Trials in life are inevitable, and problems with no immediately obvious solution will certainly arise. But, there is one obvious solution for which we should also start with: Asking God to help.

This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. Psalm 34:6 NKJV