I admit it. I am a guy and therefore I like gadgets, buttons, switches—basically anything that beeps or buzzes. Well here I sit in a Phoenix hotel room recounting the events of last night. We flew in from Buffalo via Chicago. We arrived in Phoenix and were met by our dear friends that we have never met before. Rick was one of the first people to connect with my website way back when I started it in 1996 and we have gone back and forth in the bits and bytes of the internet ever since.
I pray for him every Sunday and I know he does the same for me. When my mom had cancer, he and his church, not only prayed for her, but sent her cards. She lives in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. They are in Brenda, Arizona, USA. My mother was so delighted to know that a church she had never been to, full of people she had never met, cared enough to pray for her and send her cards. Recently, they did the same for Sheila, my wife, when she had a health scare. Those cards and the prayers they represented were pure emotional gold to her. They were a hug from God. (When was the last time you actually sent a card, a REAL card, not some virtual wannabe card? A REAL card means even more NOW because a REAL card sent in the mail is a RARE thing these days! )
Anyway, Rick and Carol are getting married and they asked me to do the wedding, I prayed about it and here we are in Phoenix on our way to Brenda in a day or so. Well after they met us at the airport, Rick gave me the keys to his Caddy. The keys, he explained, just stay in your pocket. You don’t need them to open the car door or start the car—you just need to have them on your person. Walk up to the door and it unlocks, walk away and it locks. I thought to myself, “What kind of strange magic is this?” I start to feel a slight tinge of giddiness. As I got behind the wheel of the car and pressed the button to start the car, (yes you heard right, you just have to push a button!), the steering wheel automatically came down and adjusted itself. Giddiness was now well above giddy-up mode.
We said our goodbyes to Rick and Carol and Sheila and I headed to the hotel. If we had just parked and both gone in to register, everything would have been OK, but Sheila, angel that she is, went in to register while I parked the car. What this meant was that I was left alone, in a car full of gadgets. Everywhere I looked there was something to press or pull. Initially everything was fine because I had a bunch of satellite radio stations to explore, but as I waited, I couldn’t help but think the rear-view mirror was way too dark and since there were several buttons on the mirror, including one that looked like a plus sign. I thought, ah, the plus sign must be the way to brighten the reflection in the mirror! I was so proud of myself. Who needs a manual? If I would have turned on the light, I would have noticed that the plus sign was actually a red cross sign, as in emergency, but alas, I did not turn on the light.
As soon as I pressed the plus sign, I knew that I had made a mistake as a voice came from on high, or at least from somewhere in the vehicle and it said: “OnStar emergency service, what is the nature of your emergency?” I immediately felt like I had just pulled a fire alarm and soon the OnStar swat team would descend upon the vehicle and start hitting me with rubber hoses. I figured there was no way out, so I might as well be brutally honest. I took a deep breath and said: “My emergency is that I am an idiot in a borrowed car!” Apparently there are a lot of idiots in borrowed cars because she seem relatively sympathetic to my plight and even said that false alarms happen all the time.
I am happy to say that the red cross button was the last button I pushed (that night). You can’t tell me that I don’t learn my lessons! More importantly, I couldn’t help but feel kind of good about the fact that here I was 3,654km away from home, alone sitting in a borrowed car and yet I really wasn’t alone. There was someone watching over me, interested in whether I needed help.
Of course, the same is true when I am home alone, without OnStar. As a Christian I know there is always someone there to listen, even when I am just being an idiot in a borrowed car. Thankfully He seems to love idiots just as much as He loves non-idiots. On that very fact I have based my entire life. More than that, I also realize that we were all in a state of emergency. We all needed the help that could only come from a cross that became red and that is a big plus in my books!
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23-24)
