the dangerous mechanic

Understanding my distaste for unexpected expenditures, you can imagine my discomfort taking Arfy to the mechanic. As a general rule, though, if your car's radiator fan is not working and you can't drive more than 15 minutes without overheating and having your coolant boil and explode out of its container, and if overheating can cause your engine to warp and seize up, rendering your car useless - it's probably a good time to see a mechanic. In the case of a mechanic, the unexpected costs are generally the result of finding out that your car will explode into a million pieces unless you have this, this, and this replaced. In my case it was probably true. I think that's why I tend to have an overwhelming urge to put off going to a garage for as long as possible, basically until even I can tell I'm not going to last long driving the car, because I know they're going to tell me something is more wrong with my car than I first thought.  

"How are you?" "Fine." 

As humans, we really don't like being told there's something wrong with us. This is the reason I can't even remember how many years ago I last saw a dentist. I figure if I don't know about problems with my teeth, the problems don't really exist, right? (Just say I'm right) The thing is, as long as there's nothing wrong with us, there's no point going to the dentist or the doctor. It's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick, but we're all sick and all of us have a insatiable desire to delude ourselves into thinking we're healthy.

"They are poor-so inexperienced, so stupid, that they have no other hope but him who called them" - Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)

Even if we do get up the courage to see the Doctor, almost immediately we try to forget we ever saw Him. "If I'm healed, then why do I need to remember the doctor?" Little do we recall that He gives us a prescription to follow, and that we still rely on His expertise. We try to forget that our dentist told us to floss regularly, or our doctor told us to lose weight, or that we should be taking these horrible things three times a day. These only remind us of our sickness, of our inadequacies. The truth is, though, until that Day, we are still being healed (1 Cor 1:18, 2 Cor 2:15). While we know that we have obtained the fullness of the medication on the part of the Doctor, we still bear symptoms of our illness until the Final Checkup when we are pronounced "clean." 

"Do not say you do not got faith. You will not have it so long as you persist in disobedience and refuse to take the first step" -Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)

The Struggle 

Indeed, taking Arfy to the mechanic felt much like I was taking my child to the doctor. Of course, if that was the case, I'd be a very bad father. His front tires were pretty much down to the metal wire and were about to explode; the engine was about to self-destruct due to overheating; my mass air flow sensor is unplugged - seeing which, the mechanic said "I didn't know cars could run without that connected;" there is engine oil leaking out of the valve cover gasket and burning on the engine (which could break out in flame at any moment), and the ball joint at the end of my steering tie-rod is wearing out, which could cause me to loose steering. You will notice that many of those are still in the present tense. I'm sure if I left a hospital with my child in that condition I'd be thrown in jail. However, I did have his front tires replaced and there's now a working fan in his hood to keep him a bit cooler on these hot summer days. 

It's fairly painful watching the mechanic work away on him. I figured out that the difference between myself working on a car and a mechanic working on a car is that the mechanic doesn't care how violent he is, because he knows he can fix whatever he breaks. Seeing Denis tear out the radiator fan, with no regard for the feelings of the hoses in the general vicinity, is a vivid picture of the Adamic struggle to work the earth after the fall. An even more vivid portrayal of man's struggle against nature (as much such things can be called nature) is watching Denis try to extract a stubborn bolt. It is also a dynamic display of the dexterity of the English language in constructing a sentence composed of an infinite number of expletives. I was surprised the venom of his French didn't itself cause the bolt to dissolve. It was actually painful to watch. Here was this large man pounding away at my car, pieces of bolt flying this way and that, watching as he stripped the bolt and then broke off its head. I know it can't even be compared to someone watching their child die, but at that moment I wondered if Arfy would ever turn over again. Denis looked to be so upset that he might just take the entire car apart for spite, and I wouldn't be able to stop him (how do you think you'd fare against a mechanic with a hammer, a screwdriver, and vice-grips?). When he finally got the mass air flow sensor off, and managed to break off even the part of the bolt that was left sticking out, I wondered if this was one of those things that needed to be broken before it could've been fixed, like us. I don't think it was. I just think he was angry at the bolt and didn't want to deal with it any more.  

The Total Cost 

One difference between Jesus and a mechanic (besides that he doesn't mutter profanities at us and break us in his rage) is that Jesus can give us the final total up-front. When we come to Him, we have to give up everything. Mechanics invest a lot of money in their shop, but Jesus paid it all, even Himself. In return, He asks that we give up our lives for His sake, that we may find everlasting life in Him. Sometimes we, like Keith at the mechanic, want to just fix the most nagging elements of our life and live with the rest, because we can't bear the thought of the cost, but we forget that at the start we vowed to give all. 

"Jesus has now many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His cross" -Thomas À Kempis (The Imitation of Christ)

Although I'm thankful the mechanic at another garage replaced and balanced my front tires for $60 cash up-front, instead of the $70 plus tax he originally asked for(if I were a bit more law-abiding, I might start to wonder at that), I know that I won't see him much more in my life. Jesus, on the other hand, is with me 24-7 with on-the-spot roadside assistance. Heck, He even drives most of the time. I'd like to say that He does all the driving, like I promised He would when we started out together, but the truth is that sometimes I don't like where He's going, or I find a way I think I like better. Eventually, though, with Him back behind the wheel, we always end up heading in the right direction again. 

"Let me love Thee more than myself, nor love myself but for Thee; and in Thee all that truly love Thee, as the law of love commands, shining out from Thyself" -Thomas À Kempis (The Imitation of Christ)