Stitched up or stitched in? - Part 1

This morning started out so well. Though I got up at 6:30am to go to take my car to Key Pinetown, the Saab dealer nearby, I was altogether refreshed and not feeling like I should at that time in the morning. We found the place easily enough and the car made it there without any serious complaints. I was even more heartened when I spoke to the mechanic about the symptoms I had noticed on the car, particularly the scraping over speed bumps. He said it was almost certainly the little protective flap that was drooping down and that they used to get hundreds of calls when still selling the Saab 900 from people worrying that their new car was already falling apart. So the oil leak and the scraping noise were probably not related, which increased the odds that the oil leak was something quite minor. I went into the office hopeful of a happy outcome to the day.

Then it came - the phone call. Things were more serious than I had suspected and I was actually right when I guessed at the oil leaking from the transmission (the bits that turn the engine drive into power at the wheels through the gears). Though there was some oil leakage from a few minor seals on the engine, the leak I was spotting was the one that was allowing oil out of the join between the gearbox and the engine - about the next most crucial place after the engine itself! The mechanic had quickly located that oil was coming from there in little drips, but after removing the dust cover he could see a bunch of sealant over the manifold - something that's not supposed to be there! Removing it to see the condition of the actual parts underneath a whole lot more oil came out and confirmed something was serious wrong in there. What he found was that some parts were definitely broken, and some are more than likely broken also and the cause of it all (though it's impossible to tell the exact extent of the problem until 3 hours or so into dismantling the entire transmission). Worse still is that oil has leaked into the clutch, which does explain an odd thing that happened to me only a couple of times in the first seconds after starting the car when the clutch just 'bit' suddenly. There's a few hoses in not so good condition (what makes the slightly odd noise at certain turbo pressures) and another couple of minor things, but the whole thing is set to cost me.... wait for it.... R14,000, or £1,000 to repair! Suddenly that R5,000 discount doesn't seem so significant, but boy am I glad I got that at least!

So as you can imagine that was pretty hard news to take - particularly as I don't have that sort of money just cosily lining a savings account or something. I wondered, "Did I make a mistake? Was I presumptuous? Was I seduced by a plush car and now am paying the price for my vain ways? What was the cause of this bad thing happening to me? Where was my part in it?" But the more and more I searched I could find no to why I personally should be on the receiving end of this - my conscience was clear.

It's always tricky in such situations because it's very easy to doubt both your recollections and your honesty with yourself about your motives. But my Bible tells me that one's own conscience can be a credible witness about one's own motives. Paul could write:

"For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you." (2 Corinthians 1:12)

He is seemingly quite happy to give the "testimony of conscience" as admissible evidence, and so with me also I found that all the evidence pointed to me doing nothing wrong (in this case!). I looked at all my motives and could not but come to the conclusion that I didn't act out of greed or vanity or arrogance, but actually frequently laid my ambitions before God and submitted myself to His guidance. So the question remains - why does something like this happen to me when I've given up home and comfort to obey God, and when I've humbly asked for His direction and wisdom to help me on a good path ahead?

On a human level someone has obviously stitched me up good! It could be the dealer I bought it from - seeing they'd landed a duff car they had their mechanic patch it up well enough to get it through a test drive and the Roadworthy (kinda like MOT in SA) test, and then shift it to someone unsuspecting. However it could well have been a previous owner - landed with a hefty repair bill he decided to patch it up and take it to a dealer for part exchange or something similar. Certainly the dealer I bought it from will have cars pass through their hands all the time and won't know the ins and outs of every vehicle they sell. In any case all cars sold at this dealership (and most like it - at the low end of the market) sell cars "as is", i.e. no warranty, because they're all going to have something not quite right. Whoever it was, making them legally liable would be a long process and in this case almost certainly unsucessful as it could have been done by a number of people at a number of times. So I'm stuck with the short end of the stick. God knows whodunnit though - a holy God who hates deception and unequal balances.

But every Christian must look beyond human causes to both every trial and even every blessing. Ultimately it is God:

"Does disaster come to a city,unless the LORD has done it?" (Amos 3:6)

"I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things" (Isaiah 45:7)

And in the words of the archetypal sufferer without apparent cause, Job:

"Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil? ... Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." (Job 2:10, 1:21)

As I've written before now, nothing happens apart from by the say-so of God - nothing! Certainly he had the ability to stop me from buying the car. Anything from a leading of the Holy Spirit - like a spiritual "gut feeling" - to making the sealant break on my test drive, even just a little, so I could see the oil come out when I looked intently for it upon returning to the dealership. As much as I've been sticthed up by a man, God has definitely stitched me up!

But that's not quite right. Whereas man means to stitch people up for harm (and for his gain), God means it for good (Genesis 50:20), and actually does good through the hardship he has directed at his dear son. This is what it means when the Bible says, "And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). God has not stitched me up, He's stitched me in - in to a situation where I must trust Him a lot more, where I must excercise my faith, where I must cling close to him because comfort is not close!

And this is where life is at its best. Jesus says, "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full". God is not happy with "adequate" for us, he is zealous for the best, which is Himself. He uses rough equipment at times to polish and shape faith, which he says (in 1 Peter 1:7) is more precious than perishable gold (and more precious than R14,000, I might add!). It may mean difficulty and deprivation, but the result is something far more precious. The Bible says that these light and momentary troubles are not worth comparing to the eternal weight of glory that is being stored up for us by them. Instead of having static possessions and lack of problems, God leads us to a daily renewing as we look not to the things that are seen (which are so quick to appeal when they look good), but to the eternal things that are unseen, and are far, far better (2 Corinthians 4:16ff). In short God withdraws our passing earthly joys to load us up both now and later with far greater ones that are based in Him. Faith allows us to see the good plan, to receive comfort from it, and also to begin to enjoy the God who's "stitched us in" to His own great and everlasting glory.

Whether big or small (as this case is in a life or death sense), that is how a Christian deals with trouble, and that is how I am receiving this hard end of the love of God. What I see is not disaster or the absence of care, but the presence of God's purposeful and ever-loving intervention in my life. To human logic this sort of thing signals God is not for me. To the eye of faith it is clear testimony that the God who sacrificed His own Son on my behalf is very deliberately for me!