Unconscious Receiving
This past Sunday my wife was scheduled to give a talk in Sacrament meeting at our church. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints the members and (most) leaders are not paid for our service. We are asked to speak or are "called" to serve in different areas of our local congregations.
My wife got sick the Friday before and asked if I would cover her 15 minute talk. The topic was the parable of the Good Samaritan.
I had been thinking about the topic all week as my wife had asked us of times we had felt we had "fallen among thieves" or were able to serve others in their time of need.
I spoke about a trip we took at the start of the year to Coos Bay in Oregon. My daughter is going to school out there and the clutch on the Honda Accord she was driving seemed to be going out. I figured I could swap the clutch much cheaper than a shop would charge and it is a great car that we wanted to keep using.
Note: It wasn't the clutch. Or the clutch master or slave cylinder. Nor was it air in the clutch hydraulic system. It was the stupid clutch pedal bracket! I know because I replace all of the above, several times in a few cases, and ran gallons of brake fluid through that stupid system.
Anyway, we loaded up an extra car we had on hand on a Uhaul car trailer behind our old truck and headed out to swap cars with her. We followed the route that Google Maps said was the best and fastest. Here it is:
Keep in mind that when I mapped the route on my phone it didn't give me the northern route through Portland. Which if you're wondering is the ONLY way to go on this trip. You do not want to take those back roads through central Oregon!
I drove into the night and filled up on gas in Battle Mountain shortly before we left the freeway for a very long while. And it was lucky I did, because we had 262 miles of steep climbing and descending of mountain pass after mountain pass. In the middle of the night I stopped at a "rest stop" that had a little outhouse by it and slept for a few hours in the back.
My wife started driving a few hours later in the early morning while I continued to sleep in the back seat. At some point while descending down a steep mountain road she had a cliff edge on one side, a rock wall on the other and coming around a turn, faced 2 large boulders that had fallen in the road. With no time to adjust she made the correct call to center the boulders between the wheels and run over the top of them.
As you can guess her hitting the brakes hard and hitting the rocks made a loud noise and woke me up immediately! Once we got to a pull out we switched and I started driving again. Almost immediately I could feel that something wasn't right with the brakes. I wasn't sure if the rocks had damages something or what. To go along with that worry our gas was getting below a quarter tank with no gas stations in site - and no cell service to tell how far one might be.
As the brakes got worse and the gas tank continued to drop my prayers started to gain in intensity. The gas light turned on just as we started to descend into a valley. We had cell service again! But with civilization came some stop signs. As we hit the stop sign to turn left for the last mile of road to the gas station the brakes shuttered and seemed to lock up at the end. I was able to turn and as we were pulling into the gas station all 4 pumps were full with cars so I stopped off to the side of the parking lot.
At that point the brakes locked up completely. I could put the truck in drive and give it gas and it would not move! We were stuck.
I went into the gas station and asked about a mobile mechanic who might be able to help us. He said I should ask at the tire shop in the back of his station. It turned out they were a U-haul rental station too. It was perfect.
Until it wasn't. The "mechanic" came back about 10 minutes later from picking up a customers vehicle and was a complete jerk. He said he might be able to look at it tomorrow.
At that point I looked for mechanics that were close and called the closest one. Max's garage was a few hundred yards down the road. The lady who answered was super nice and after she asked the shop, said they would send someone over in a few minutes.
He had me put it in reverse and diagnosed that it was an issue with the rear drivers' side brake of the truck and after instructing me how to reverse and then shift into drive without using the brakes, we had it over to their shop in no time.
Turned out I had not tightened the rear brake caliper on that side when I had updated the brakes 6 months before and the bottom bolt had fallen out completely! This caused the caliper to twist enough to lock up when the brakes were applied.
Within 20 minutes they had found a replacement bolt from the myriad of vehicles sitting on their lot and, with the bolts fully tightened this time, we were able to gas up and be on our way. It was $130 I happily paid.
Doctrine and Covenants 89 is what we call the "Word of Wisdom". It's why members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints don't use drugs, drink alcohol or coffee etc. At the end there is a promise for those who follow God's commandments:
As we pulled out of that gas station to continue our journey I reflected on how things could have gone. That bolt could have fallen out as my wife was driving through the canyon, locking up the brakes and potentially causing us to lose control. Or just locked up and left us stranded out in the middle of nowhere. No cell service. No one to call for help. (We had seen less than a handful of cars since leaving the freeway.) It would have been a very tough situation to be in.
Instead it fell out somewhere right before we pulled into the gas station parking lot and within a few hundred yards of the people who could fix it!
Some would say this was coincidence. I disagree.
We were protected!
But I also recognize that isn't always the case in our lives. I like to think that the man who fell amongst thieves in the parable of the Good Samaritan was a good, faithful man. He was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time and God had a message to send him. That last part is conjecture on my part. But stick with me here.
Sarah sent me this great message a few days before I gave my talk and I listened to it several times.
It helped me reframe the parable of the Good Samaritan. The lawyer had asked "Who is my neighbor?" expecting a boundary-defining answer (who qualifies, who doesn't). Jesus flipped it entirely. At the end He asks, "Which of these three was neighbor unto him?" He turned it from "who deserves my help" into "what kind of person am I becoming?" Which goes right along with the "I am" parts of Jamie's talk above.
Luke 10:30 says the man in the parable was "half dead." Giving him zero capacity to refuse, negotiate, or even know who was helping him. He woke up in an inn, cared for, paid for, by someone he almost certainly would have refused help from if he'd been conscious and had a choice. In fact, he probably would have hated him.
Think about the moment he wakes up. The innkeeper tells him a Samaritan did all this for him. What happened inside him then? Does he feel gratitude? Discomfort? Does it reshape how he sees Samaritans for the rest of his life? Jesus doesn't tell us, and that silence might be intentional, because that's the question He's leaving with the lawyer and with us.
Sometimes the encounters that change who we're becoming arrive uninvited, through people or circumstances we never would have chosen.
If you happen to be reading this, then I wish to leave you with the same admonition I left with the congregation on Sunday.
This week, be unconscious in receiving!
God loves you! He has a plan for your life. Trust in Him and in your Savior Jesus Christ. He has many blessings he is anxious to give you but you have to receive them.
P.S. And for goodness sakes, when God sends a boat, get in!
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