Almost 30 years ago, I started a project that took over 15 years and many thousands of dollars to complete. I started a Total Restoration of a 1965 Dodge Dart GT. I learned so much over the years of that total car restoration…what was the main thing I learned? I’ll never restore another car! That car was in such terrible shape-it needed everything finished, fixed or replaced-inside and out.
I started off ordering a new engine block from the factory in Detroit, plus a matching transmission. Of course there was a lot to put on a bare engine block, and many of the old parts were broken etc., and so began the “money parade” trying to find parts, (of course I had to upgrade to have headers and sidepipes!) As I started to search for body parts, I soon discovered that there were none to be found! I mean no one anywhere had body parts on the shelf for a 1965 Dodge Dart! I had to take the car to a semi-retired body man who started custom making some of the body panels etc. from other cars with similar lines-because I wanted it to be ALL STEEL-NO BODY FILLER! Then the “body man” determined that we needed more parts than he could make and we needed a “donor car”. That’s a car you use for parts to complete the one you are working on. We located one in Idaho, and in a few weeks (and a few thousand dollars more) it was sitting next to my project car! Now, we had all the parts for the body we needed…that car had a completely different engine, so nothing under the hood would help (although we used the hood)!
After the body was finished (a few more years), the car went to a mechanic to finish getting it running, and next door to the mechanic was an auto upholstery company, ta-da! The final step was the paint job. I had invested so many years and so much money in that car, I thought I might as well keep going and get a professional paint job. It did eventually turn out beautiful.
Did you know that since you were born into a broken sinful world, you, me, everyone needs a Total Restoration that God has provided through Jesus: ”For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” Romans 3:23 (NLT)
I want to tell you about a friend of mine named Jim, and the day he made a decision that resulted in a Total Restoration of his life! Jim and I had worked together for two or three years, and during that time he often had many questions that were in some way related to my faith in God. Knowing he was a reader, I would try to give him articles, books, even Bibles to help him reach an understanding of what Christ did for us through His death, burial and resurrection as evidenced by the empty tomb.
Jim had another part-time job at a local bowling lanes establishment, working there three or four evenings a week. One morning he came in to work looking happy about something, and said he had to tell me something strange that happened last night. He said when he left work here last night, he felt like “everything in his life was crushing him.” Halfway home he pulled his car off the road and started crying/screaming out to God that he was sorry for his sins. He said what made him cry was finally knowing that God loved him so much–more than anyone could love him, and He gave His own Son to die for him. He said, “God, I can’t make it on my own anymore, lead the way and I’ll follow.”
When he was able to see, he continued on home and got ready to go to his part-time job…he said he walked into the bowling lanes and went behind the counter like he always did, but he felt so strange, and he didn’t know why or couldn’t even explain it. He said, “I looked around and saw at least 100 perhaps as many as 200 people I knew yet I felt all alone and almost like I was a different person or something.”
I smiled and said: “I guess you don’t even realize it and that’s why I love what you said so much, but when you pulled your car off the road and poured you heart out to God, you accepted Christ and became a Christian!” Then I told him that I had never heard such a great example of a Bible verse: “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” 2 Corinthians 5;17 (NLT) I told him “You just described what that verse is saying, you became a new person!”
Jim went on to help many others as they struggled with the challenges of this broken world. He was constantly helping others, using the fruits of his Total Restoration as the manager of my former business until I sold it in 2020.
Till Next Time…..
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