{"id":1453,"date":"2014-07-21T21:02:31","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T02:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/?p=1453"},"modified":"2014-07-21T21:02:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-22T02:02:31","slug":"all-the-best-laid-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/2014\/07\/all-the-best-laid-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"All The Best Laid Plans\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nothing

Nothing much left of this engine I am afraid<\/p><\/div>\n

The best laid plans of mice and man (or however the saying goes), have hit us in the face again. As per usual, plans seem to become fairly fluid in the Frey household. This is not necessarily by choice (despite the accusations of the same to my poor, wrongly accused self), but just seem to follow me and swirl around me like the cloud of dust around Pig-Pen in the \u201cPeanuts\u201d comic strip.<\/p>\n

Theresa and I finished off all of our last minute running around and business on Saturday morning, battened down the house for a six week absence and got off to a good start at a fairly reasonable time like planned. We drive without incident for several hours towards the border. The day was hot, the air conditioner was running, there were no problems in sight, we were listening to a story on the MP3 player, and I wasn\u2019t paying much attention to anything until the engine began balking and I saw that the check engine light was on and the gauges were reading hot. We rolled to a stop beside the road in the middle of nowhere<\/p>\n

\"Stripped

Stripped down and bare<\/p><\/div>\n

and I checked the engine, finding it so hot that the oil was boiling and air was bubbling back into the coolant reservoir. We let things cool down, put water in again and limped our way back onto the highway. But things didn\u2019t look good. First of all, there was a lot of white smoke coming from the tail pipe, and the temperature indicator was swiftly climbing into critical again. We slowly made it to the next village and pulled into the only gas station in town. By this time the bearings were protesting wildly, the engine was backfiring, there was enough white smoke coming from the tailpipe to fumigate for mosquitoes, and I knew that the head must be very fried.<\/p>\n

The gas attendant said that he had a friend who is a mechanic and called him up. We towed the vehicle to a shop and then began to look at our alternatives. We knew that this was no longer to have a simple, quick-fix solution and that we would need a place to stay for several days.<\/p>\n

\"Oh,

Oh, how will this pile of burnt-out parts all get put together again<\/p><\/div>\n

But God is good. Of all the desolate, uninhabited miles along the trip north we \u201cjust happened\u201d to break down at the one<\/span> town along the eight hour trip that I \u201cchanced\u201d to know someone (well, sort of at least). Once, about nine years ago, I stopped off with Marty Dyer, a pastor friend of mine from Grove, Oklahoma to visit a pastor friend of his here in the village of Jimenez, the town where the van broke down. I could no longer remember her name, or where her church was, but I was almost certain that she lived in, or around Jimenez. I asked our newly acquired mechanic friend, Jes\u00fas by name, if he knew of an evangelical church in town with a pastor of such and such a description. He took us to several places to look around and none of them looked familiar. However, we came back to one of the churches and found a couple just arriving for a prayer time. We spoke to them and more or less figured out who my pastor friend was and that indeed she did live close by, but they suggested that we speak to their pastor and see if he could help us. We did so, and he offered us a place in a room off of the church compound.<\/p>\n

We have been shown generous Mexican hospitality and now await the repair of the van. It<\/p>\n

\"Tossed

Tossed aside to be rebuilt. Can new hope be brought out of the wrecks of life<\/p><\/div>\n

will be several days and many more hundreds of dollars than I was hoping to spend, or had budgeted for, but we have very few options I am afraid.<\/p>\n

But God is good.<\/p>\n

However, it looks like we may need to sell this van and begin looking for a donated vehicle to replace it. If anyone could give a small, four cylinder pickup that is in good working condition to the ministry we certainly would not refuse the gift. We desperately need a good functioning vehicle to traverse the bad roads that we need to drive on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

To make it to the U.S. border we need to have the head gaskets replaced, the heads shaved, the valves ground, the pistons (at least some of them probably) replaced, rings replaced, and who knows what else done to the poor old van. What actually happened we think is that the radiator plugged and starved the engine of coolant. With the stress on the engine due to the hot day and the use of the air conditioner and the climbing of a hill it just overheated and fried out the whole engine.<\/p>\n

\"Houses

Houses opened to us in beautiful Mexican hospitality<\/p><\/div>\n

When I look at the pile of torn apart junk laying around the greasy \u201cmechanic shop\u201d \u2013 all pieces that should be attached to our engine \u2013 I realize that I can fume and fuss as much as I like , but we ain\u2019t going nowhere soon.<\/p>\n

But like I have already said, God is good. He has taken care of us in a wonderful way. It may not be the Hilton, and perhaps more like morsels of bread brought by the ravens, and river water to drink, but it is his provision nonetheless, and we are grateful. The room is boiling hot, and we have a single fan to move around the oven-hot air, but we have a bed and a shower. It certainly is so very much better than being at the mercy of who-knows-who in some unknown village along the way, or trying to sleep in the broken-down van. God has looked after us again, and we thank him.<\/p>\n

This breakdown has meant that Theresa and I will need to change our plans and schedule for the trip north as well. We must cancel some of the planned stops and visits along the way, but the Lord willing we will still make it to Nebraska in time for Theresa\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n

God is good!<\/p>\n

Are there any spiritual applications and lessons to be learned from this whole little \u201cfiasco\u201d?<\/p>\n

\"Just

Just a really cool door. I won’t try to read any great spiritual significance into it<\/p><\/div>\n

I think that there are:<\/p>\n

First of all, the Apostle James talks about enduring trials and troubles in chapter 1 verses 2-4 where he says:<\/p>\n

\u201cDear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Peter also states in 1 Peter 1 verse 7(a):<\/p>\n

\u201cThese trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purified gold \u2013 and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Although burning up the engine in ones van and being stuck in a town in Mexico for several days may hardly be contrived of as a fiery trial testing ones faith as spoken of by Peter, it certainly can be accurately called \u201ctrouble\u201d as spoken of by James. My first tendency in the natural is to react with gritted teeth, set eyes and a stamp of the foot, declaring the unfairness of the whole thing. This was not in my budget nor plan!!<\/p>\n

\"Another

Another picture-perfect shot in the town of Jimenez<\/p><\/div>\n

But what does James say? Let troubles be an opportunity for joy.<\/p>\n

JOY<\/i><\/b>?<\/p>\n

Yes, because when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.<\/p>\n

Hmmm, not exactly my natural reaction to troubles I have to say!<\/p>\n

Let endurance grow (due to troubles in your life), because when your endurance is fully developed you will be strong in character and ready for anything.<\/p>\n

I do like the promise of the result \u2013 a character that is fully developed and ready for anything \u2013 I have to confess thought that the pathway to the result rubs against the fur and is never pleasant. Still, I doubt that there are any shortcuts.<\/p>\n

There is also another lesson, or parallel that I learn from this mechanical meltdown on the van dealing with the issue of sin. Let me explain:<\/p>\n

The process, probably, on the van went something like this \u2013<\/p>\n

For some time now there has been a buildup of \u201ccrud\u201d in the radiator. Never anything noticeably big \u2013 nothing overwhelmingly devastating, not even very noticeable really. Just a flake of rust here, a bit of junk there, a glob of goop in some unnoticed tube, and some orange slime simmering in some corner of some pipe along the way. In reality, the system would have probably worked for months, maybe even years if there had been no heat stress placed on the engine. Little trips to the farm and back may have gone on indefinitely perhaps without anyone noticing the accumulation of nastiness in the radiator.<\/p>\n

But there was a day of stress \u2013 119 degree heat, air conditioner running, uphill climb \u2013 and the meltdown happened, the crud in the unseen areas of the radiator was revealed for what is really was \u2013 the slow, devastating, mostly unseen and unsuspected accumulation of choking nastiness. Due to the stress the engine began to be starved of life sustaining coolant, and the destructive overheating and meltdown happened to a \u201cperfectly good\u201d van.<\/p>\n

So what am I saying? Just this \u2013 rarely does a Christian set out to fall into a devastating, life-destroying sin. In fact, most often the spiritual meltdown comes about as the result of small compromises and \u201clittle\u201d sins. These are the small flakes of rust, the orange goop, and the bits of nastiness that begin to clog ones spiritual radiator. Over time these build up to a point of critical mass.<\/p>\n

Then, at a point of stress in ones life this unseen and unsuspected mass begins to block the person\u2019s spiritual life, heat builds up, and what once looked like a perfectly good spiritual engine lies destroyed and useless puffing nothing but spiritual black smoke.<\/p>\n

The irony is that a $10 dollar radiator flush would have saved the engine if it had been done before any heat began to build up \u2013 before the physical pressure was placed on the engine. In the same way we also must service and maintain our spiritual radiators. We must be careful to have spiritual flushes done routinely in our lives as well. We must maintain a washing by the water of the Word in our spiritual lives lest the crud and goop of sin build up, threatening to destroy our spiritual engines.<\/p>\n

Too much being read into a burned out engine on the van? I don\u2019t think so. Let it be your parable for today.<\/p>\n

May God bless you richly.<\/p>\n

Steven and Theresa Frey<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The best laid plans of mice and man (or however the saying goes), have hit us in the face again. As per usual, plans seem to become fairly fluid in the Frey household. This is not necessarily by choice (despite the accusations of the same to my poor, wrongly accused self), but just seem to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1461,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453\/revisions\/1461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vitwministries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}