Good News - July 2019

ENCOURAGEMENT www.goodnewsfl.org 27 JULY 2019 • Reverse lockout (that’s so you can’t put your car in reverse while driving down the highway) • Spare tire • Speedometer • Turn signals • Creature comforts (AC, cup holders, radio, Bluetooth) Most of all, I am sure it had never seen roads outside of the great state of North Carolina. Harley, the friend who sold us the car, pulled it out of a barn (we have the pictures to prove it). The Octogenarian was a homebody. Tackling the punch list Progress was slow. Not slow and steady, just slow. I worked on the Chevy a little here and a little there. But when Spanish River Church gra- ciously provided a sabbatical, we decided to haul the Octogenarian to Arkansas. For the second time in a year the car became a trailer queen. Once safely tucked into my shop, I mapped out a plan and began to work with renewed determination. The sign on the windshield was my punch list of things to do. It was long and I had a longer one on paper. Near the top of my list was “Correct hinge sag.” 1936 was the last year Chevrolet used wood in their cars. The doors are actually wood, skinned in metal. Years of water had brought on a lot of rot. The door sagged on its hinges so badly the only way to close it was to lift it up by the door handle — from the outside of the car — slam it shut, then run around and climb in from the passenger side. Needless to say, that would not work for a 3,000 mile trip. Correcting that “one little item” on my punch list would not be easy. The door had to come off, old wood pulled out (deforestation), templates made, new wood cut (I used red oak), shaped, fitted and installed. In ad- dition I would have to add steel reinforcements, which was an entirely dif- fered fabrication journey (finding steel, cutting, bending, fitting, welding). Then the door fitted, refined and refitted again and again till corrected. But . . . before performing surgery on the sagging door, I would first have to make bucks to help the door keep its shape during the work. And that was its own “piece of work.” After one particularly arduous day, I shared this on our family text thread: Today I used my vice, grinding wheel, tape measure, pencil, marker, oak, table saw, multipurpose tool, drill, impact drill, SkilSaw, Sawzall, screwdriver, sanding disc, palm sander, square, four different hammers, multiple drill bits, compressor, plain, shop light, three extension cords, 1/8 inchmetal, 20 gauge sheet steel, wire brush, tape measure, cardboard for template, poster board to refine the template, dimple die tool, 1/2 and 3/4 socket and ratchet, and a couple of smaller wrenches. All that just to create the bucks that would enable me to repair the door without it losing its shape. Next came the actual work (a story in itself) that paid off when the door — refitted for the umteenth time—opened and closed with a “not-perfect-but-not-too-bad” degree of alignment. Unseen work When I checked that item off my list, I broke out in a happy dance. Then I had one of those AHA! moments realizing just how much unseen work we all do, which is why we can appreciate the words of Solomon when he said: “The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy” (Proverbs 14:10 ESV). So that smile on my face is part of the ricochet of joy that came my way, complements of a lot of hard work. Of course, when Solomon penned the words of Proverbs 12:14, “From the fruit of his mouth a man is satisfied with good, and the work of a man's hand comes back to him,” he didn’t have automobiles on his mind. But as the Cambridge Bible commentary notes, “the point of the proverb is that his speech and action have their consequences for a man himself, as well as for his neighbor.” Your speech and actions have consequences. The unseen work of your life — the encouraging, the praying, the helping, the giving, the sharing, the loving — it all comes back to you. This is not a blind “What goes around comes around.” This is the promise of a God who sees and rewards with a joy greater than the work that brought it. There are days when efforts seem unrewarded. No worries. Press on. In time you will enjoy the sweet satisfaction of your hard work. Tommy Kiedis is the senior pastor at Spanish River Church in Boca Raton.