Willed Obedience in Action

I was working with Dad in the garage on an old minivan. The owner did not have much money but desperately needed the van fixed. It was a bad starter. And alternator. And battery. After he replaced these with good used parts, we were talking, and he noticed the tires were balding. He said the owner wouldn’t be able to afford new tires, so he had me get a set of good, used tires he had stored in the back of an old box truck. With those tires and the tune-up, the van would be back on the road. I asked him if the owner could afford this work being done. He told me no, but it needed to be done. So, this one was on the house. I still remember his grin when he said, “You never know. This might be a test.”

Dad didn’t bring much, if any, attention to his works of service to others. He was a mechanic with a small shop, making a modest living while helping a lot of people out. Keeping their cars running on a budget. I worked with him enough to know this was a common practice of hsi. Helping people who were in a bind for low and often no cost. If he was being tested, he passed. Over and over again.

Dad worked hard for a living. Long hours for modest pay. But he made enough to raise a family and help a community. In her book, Suffering Is Never For Nothing, Elisabeth Elliot says, “Faith is not a feeling. It is a willed obedience in action.” I love those words. The discipline of daily living with trust, openness, and love in action. Loving our neighbors.

We are never exonerated from pain or struggle. Neither are our neighbors. It serves us well to remember this as we go about our daily work and our daily living.

It does our soul well to consider our many opportunities to respond to our neighbors in love. We need not worry about passing a test, as Dad knew. But it is ours to test and approve our responses to each moment given us. Today, may I be open to see those moments and act in love and obedience as Dad so often did. May I not seek exoneration but rather seek opportunities. May I have the willed obedience to respond, to act, and to love my neighbors surrounding me in this, my neighborhood.