Anybody who knows me knows well that I am no mechanical genius. A faux pas I made several years ago illustrates the point perfectly.

The rearview mirror had fallen off of our ‘91 Lumina. It is a simple problem to fix and one that a third-grader could handle. I got the little regluing kit from a local auto supply store and carefully went about reading the instructions before doing the repair. I wanted to do it right!

There is only one basic step. You reglue the metal piece that holds the mirror in place to the windshield. The piece is beveled on one side so that the mirror will slide down over it. All you have to do is make sure you glue the beveled side to the windshield. A friend who had replaced a mirror a few days before even reminded me of this fact before I tackled the job.

You guessed it. I glued the non-beveled side to the windshield. Then I let it set over night so that it would be sure to hold. When I went to attach the mirror the next morning, I discovered my mistake. And you talk about a product that works--the metal piece was superglued in place!

I won't tell you how I finally got the metal piece loose (or how many man-hours it took), but the experience left me feeling that I had secured a place in the Mechanically Declined Hall of Fame.

It reminded me of that old joke about the man who had some less than intelligent workers sodding his front lawn. From time to time he would yell out the window, "Green side up!" Someone needed to be yelling at me, "Beveled side in!"

You're laughing at me and I am laughing, too. The simple truth is that I am not gifted in the area of mechanics. (Well, let's be honest, I am a mechanical moron.) But that's okay. I realize that God has given me other talents that I can use in serving him.

The real tragedy would be if I spent much time lamenting my mechanical ineptitude instead of using the abilities God has given me to His glory. God has gifted us all differently. Our job is to identify these gifts and get busy using them in the work of the Kingdom. From now on, I will leave auto repair jobs, even the simple ones, to someone else. I have plenty of other tasks to keep me busy!
-----Phil LeMaster