It was at a time when I was very enthusiastic about community service. Problem was, I didn’t have a clue as to what that looked like. From earliest days, I was a loner, growing up self focused. Finding pleasure and personal piece, with an appetite for self importance and recognition.

Being a mechanic, and a pretty good one according to my satisfied customers, I chanced to see the headline on a big city newspaper section. ‘God’s Grease Monkeys’ Perfect fit. I was a new Christian and had the usual images of what that meant. Be nice and get extra points for doing something for a stranger. It was in the Bible somewhere. God likes that stuff after all. God himself is pretty nice and that seemed to be the ticket for theological success.

I read on and the article outlined a garage in a suburb of St. Paul that repaired cars for people that had little or no money. I got the address and time of this outreach and picked a few hand tools, a code reader. I showed up and they gladly put me to work. An oil change and a headlight bulb or two for starters. On the floor of the shop. The next month, the staff knew I could do more complex things and assigned me a brake job and another light bulb replacement. Those can be harder to do as you might know.

That ministry team even stuffed my Volvo station wagon with food that was part of the Grease Monkey ministry “Spread it around your neighborhood” were the instructions. Right. my neighborhood is mostly lake homes and farmers. We ate most of it and gave some to friends in town.

I was racking up God points and then the inevitable for all car ministries occurred: The repeat attendee with yet another car, and another after that. Judgment time. The perfect ministry was buying the parts. Tires, wheel bearings, blower motors, filters, window regulators and lots of light bulbs. When questioned about things, often the response would be; “oh, I sold that one you fixed a while back”

There was no more clarity for me. However, my coworkers were good with these situations. I did not take it to the Lord in prayer. There was a reason I was there which I did not know. I just showed up because that’s what people of faith do. I was puzzled to this giving away to strangers.

I started another car repair ministry,ten miles away with town friends. The same thing happened. ‘Why am I doing this?’ “We are just being used!” This time I took some advice and sat with the Lord.

What are you learning, what is happening to you? Do you find joy no matter what, do you connect with Me and talk with me? I will show you things beyond your dark curtain that will give you great joy!

I knew that I wasn’t really nice and I was not praying, not abiding and not listening. It got better after that. I began to open up and began seeing and listening to the Father I always craved. I surrendered leadership to Him. I began talking, singing a bit while I served the ones given to me It was pretty good. Jack