The air conditioner blower fan on my van would only work on defrost (default position). At first I went on line to find out causes. I found several videos on what it could be, but the one that made the most sense was the vacuum hose. I watched several videos on how to change/reattach the vacuum lines. These videos told me I had to take off the inside cover under the dashboard to get to the back of the engine where the vacuum line is attached. Too much! After trying for hours to find the problem it was time to call a mechanic to find what was going on. It was the vacuum line and some dollars later I had a/c once again! YAY! A few months later-no blower except in defroster again! HOT! It was time to look again and see what was wrong. This time the vacuum line was broken behind the air filter housing under the hood. Easy fix–just re-attach, right? There were just a couple of problems. One, the air filter housing was in the way and two, the hose was brittle, it kept breaking, it was getting shorter and shorter until I could not reach behind engine. Exasperating! I was getting too hot working in the sun! But I continued to work and I took off the air filter housing. I was reattaching hose again only to have it keep breaking until in exasperation once again, I continued to follow the hose as it continued to break until …. I came to a connection that was in the “wrong” place according to the videos that I had watched. The hose connection was toward the back yet close enough to reach from under the hood instead of taking the engine cover off from under the dashboard, AND easy to get to! I pulled off the end connector and attached my extra long hose that I put on the first time and replaced the air filter housing and now I had AIR CONDITIONING coming out of the correct vents! Thank you, Lord!
Why this long drawn out story? Because in life we can look for the quick fix to help ourselves or if we have a problem we can decide what should be done or we put our trust in the wrong experts. Either way we tend to find a “solution” that seems to fix everything—for the moment. Then the problem resurfaces a little later seemingly worse than before and we wonder what happened. God showed us the solution and we “solved the problem!” Really? Just as with the air conditioning story, we ask God why isn’t it working out and why can’t this thing get fixed. I was elated to have the mechanic find the solution and fix it the first time…just reattaching the hoses. The next time I found the problem-again the hose was off and I reattached it and everything worked. The third time this happened, I was complaining, “Why God can’t you fix this, why is it taking so long, why is it so hard, why do I have to go through this?” Why, why, why. UNTIL…I reached the other end of the worn out hose and found a connector that was in good condition and was able to really fix the problem so it would not happen again (at least for a long time) with the extra length of hose I already had from the first time it was “fixed”.
The solution was just a few inches away yet at the time it seemed like feet or yards away. I kept on until after the whining, complaining, after the exasperation, and little tantrums, I came across the correct way to fix the problem!
In times like these I think about Jeremiah and how God led him to the potter’s house to watch as a clay vessel was being made. God spoke to Jeremiah through an everyday event—nothing extraordinary! Think of it as a kitchen storage container being manufactured or the production of a drinking cup. We seem to want to wait for God to give us something spectacular or “spiritual” so we KNOW God has SPOKEN. Yet it is in the quiet, ordinary, mundane things that He seems to speak the loudest, yet do we listen?
God wants to get us to the root of whatever problem we have and not build again on faulty or worn out assumptions (attaching worn brittle hoses). He does not want us to “fix” a broken relationship our own way without God at the center of the solution. He does not want us trying solutions that do not include Him to fix a problem, even if we go to the “experts” or “professionals” for help. God may have you seek professional or expert advice, as part of you answer, but wait for the correct answer, dig deeper to get to the real answer God has for you. It may mean a little pain, a little time, asking “why” and getting exasperated, complaining, throwing some tantrums, while working toward the best God has for you. But it will be worth it all. Remember to ask, seek and knock (Matthew 7:7, so keep on asking, keep on seeking and keep on knocking and then you will receive, find and doors will be opened). God also wants us to ask for wisdom which He will give to all who ask (James 1:5-6).
God bless you,
Frank.