Struggling to make myself understood by the gas station attendant who accused me of ruining his car wash (yesterday’s blog), I tried one last time. “The recording won’t let me put in my code!”
“You were just supposed to punch it in,” he said with disdain, “so the wash would start like it always does.”
“But it won’t let me punch it in! It says it’s ‘in use’!”
“No!” he said. “You just punch it in. Like this!” Punching hard at his cash register buttons, he looked at me through a frown.
“But it won’t let me!” I pleaded. “Won’t you please come outside so I can show you?”
“It won’t let you, because you broke it! No – I won’t come. Wagging his finger at me he said, “You go now. No car wash for you today!”
“But I already paid!” I said again.
“No car wash for you today… or any other day! Never!”
And with that he reached into his cash register and pulled out a five dollar bill and tossed it on the counter in front of me. “There. Now get your car and go! And don’t come back!”
As I walked back to my car feeling completely misunderstood, I thought about how frustrating it is to do your very best at getting a point across and still fail. And I had to ask myself, is that how God feels when I don’t “get” something he’s trying to tell me?
When things aren’t going well and there’s no one to blame, do I blame him? And then does he feel frustrated with my lack of understanding? Or when he’s trying to tell me something through his Word, do I interrupt and “talk over” him by skipping the hard parts or denying his intended meaning? Or do I lose patience when he doesn’t quickly answer my prayer requests?
Does he finally give up and stop trying as I did with the gas station guy? I didn’t really want $5; I wanted a car wash. But he wasn’t willing to hear me out or go outside to identify the problem.
It’s similar with God. He wants me to come along with him, to spend one-on-one time listening carefully to what he’s trying to explain. He’s hoping I’ll try to understand with an open mind. I wanted the attendant to believe me, but from the beginning, he was set against that. God wants me to believe him, too, without my defenses being up against him.
As I walked back to my car, I passed the machine where I’d first entered my code. “Please wait. Car wash in use,” it said. All I could think was that when the next car wash customer couldn’t punch in his code, he would probably head for the attendant, too. That’s when he’d learn that a crazy woman broke it that afternoon.
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 1:18)