Washing The Truck

My Saturday morning task was simple; wash our pickup truck. In a few hours, we would be heading to a family gathering out in the country and I saw this as an excuse to clean our truck.

 

While gathering the tools needed, I decide to wash and wax the exterior of the truck and “Armor All” the interior.

 

It was a task that shouldn’t have taken so long except for the fact that the bottle of wax was empty. So, I decided to head up to Target (yes, some of us still shop there) to purchase a new bottle of wax.

 

I also decided to stop at the Holiday Gas Station to fill up the tank for the long road trip. I returned to my scene of the washing one hour later.

 

As I washed and waxed the truck and cleaned the interior, I noticed that our other vehicle probably should be cleaned as well…which means that I ended up washing and waxing both vehicles and “Armor All” the interiors even though we would only be driving one.

 

Start to finish, the whole process used up several hours of my time. But, BOTH vehicles glistened in the sunshine and reflected everything surrounding them; that is until one day later.

 

Have you noticed that clean vehicles seem to get really dirty really fast? The next morning while getting in the truck to go to church, I noticed that even though it rained the whole time that we drove home from the party, the dust from the county roads still caked the outside of the truck.

 

In my opinion, the truck looked even dirtier than before I had cleaned it twenty fours earlier. One dusty road; one rainstorm was all it took to go backwards!

 

I suppose I could have put the vehicles in a garage or covered them with a tarp of some sort, but eventually, they would return to their former state of dirtiness.

 

All that to say this: Relationships are like that. We put so much effort into building, cleaning, repairing; and one misunderstanding; one conflict seems to make the relationship worse than before.

 

This was my mindset as I sat in church one Sunday when I felt as though I wasn’t on the same page as Cathy. We had migrated back to where we were before we had done some concerted efforts to move the relationship forward and make it stronger. And being a “fixer”, sitting still wasn’t an option and yet that is where I was at. Distant and detached and wondering what she needed to get us back on the same page again.

 

The worship team was leading the congregation in the song; “Oceans” by Hillsongs. And the words jumped off the screen to my heart.

 

And faith arose.

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand

And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

 

I always thought of that song as pertaining to moving mountains and believing God for a miracle; not mundane things like reconnecting relationships.

 

And yet the song proclaimed that His grace “abounds in deepest waters” and that His “sovereign hand will be my guide where feet may fail and fear surrounds me”.

 

And I thought of the truck; beneath the layers of dust and raindrops there was a fresh coat of wax. All it would take to get it back to the mirrored finish of yesterday was to wash it off.

 

The song shouted out to my heart: “You've never failed and You won't start now!”
 

Similarly; I needed to call out to the Lord to remove the relational dust and raindrops to reveal what was below those layers: A relationship built upon all of the hard work we had done before the dust and raindrops of misunderstanding and bad communication.

 

My response was to shout back to my troubled soul that was longing for help:

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

 

So I responded to the hand held out to me and cried out in my spirit:

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

Oh, Jesus, you're my God!

I will call upon Your name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine

 

Grateful that the Lord responded with His grace to soften two hearts eager to once again go forward. together.