Growing up only the rich people had two car garages. None in the suburban
neighborhood I grew up in, just a single car unit attached to the house, shared
with bicycles, lawn mowers, skate boards, and hula hoops. A design whose size
was determined by cars built 30 years earlier, and in which the sixties cars of
my youth barely fit. My Grandpa had a 1962 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, that he had
to touch the front bumper to the wall, and climb out the passenger’s side door,
he couldn’t open his door as it was almost against the left wall. Then gently
slide the garage door closed, as it narrowly missed the rear bumper. A skill he
mastered with great ease, but it took patience and great aim to pull it off
every night. In the dark.
Some of the newer homes where I lived had deep garages for the
unesssentials of life, and they would be stacked so the longer, wider cars would
fit, or almost fit again. Add in a bicycle or two, and it was a procedure just
to go to work getting in your car. When I dared to buy my first motorcycle,
many early mornings were greeted with “Michael move that ^%$&* motorcycle so
I can go to work.” So much for sleeping in....but as my Dad was never into big
cars, probably based on price, the Ramblers he owned always seemed to fit,
thoughtfully avoiding the garage parking blues. And in return allowing the
motorcycles he hated a place to sleep for the night. Even then I knew that if
I wanted to ride, I had to be creative. Would you let your wife or girlfriend
sleep outside while you were warm and safe inside? Cars are for garages aren’t
they? A question that should be posed to home owners in So Cal, as some doors
when opened contain anything but cars. From boxes, to bought new and never used
exercise equipment, to being converted to an extra bedroom, to storage for stuff
they just can’t throw away, to an extra den for the kids, today’s garages are
for anything but cars. And yet with two car garages the standard, they still
have no room to park them. Do we see a problem here? Was what was once a
luxury, a two car garage, turned into a storage unit, while the $35,000 new car,
the average price of a new car in 2015, sits out? And what about motorcycles?
Have our priorities gone crazy or have we? And some husbands still hear “move
that #$^&&**” motorcycle out my way....”
So where do we park the cars? Driveways fill up, narrow streets get
crowded, and wider streets become just one wide lane for us to ride on, the new
storage area for cars. While the garage fills up with junk. Except at our
house, and others who ride. No man cave here, I think that term is so stupid.
Probably thought up by some yuppie who takes the bus. With our motorcycle
population growing at one time, we made certain arrangements that Theresa’s
Mustang would always have a space. And it does. All the junk we cannot part
with, is stored on shelves. A TV sits where we can visit with our bikes when
not riding, and visit with friends, like previous generations did on their front
porches. Add the 1949, vintage Coke machine, a rack to work on bikes, and a
workbench, and we still have fit as many as nine motorcycles in our two car/nine
motorcycle garage. Which now down to three looks empty. A garage my Grandpa
would have loved to hang out in, to polish his Cadillac, to bench race and tell
us stories of when he was our age. To tell of when he had his new car in his
old garage, how it barely fit, and the procedure for parking it every night. As
the younger ones would try to imagine a one car garage, and a car so big it
almost didn’t fit. And tell of when Coke was 10 cents a bottle, premium gas 30
cents a gallon, and it was pumped for you. The garage would be a place to
fellowship, to visit, to work on your bike, to keep the car clean after the
rain, and where history was rewritten. What’s in your garage? Are you missing
a chance to bench race with your kids and friends? I mean, how cool can
Starbucks really be? Here the Cokes are free, no lattes available, and the
smells of Castrol and 104 octane gas fill the air. If only my Grandpa could be
here.....
We lose something when we don’t get together and fellowship and bench
race. We miss the intimacy of friends just being friends, of being comfortable,
of being ourselves in an atmosphere where the memories are old but told in a way
to make them sound new and exciting. To want to relive them. Testimonies we
call them, meant for sharing. And being shared. Yet so many hearts are like
that garage filled with stuff, with no room for its original purpose, and the
car sits out. Jesus tells us we cannot put new wine in old wine skins, they
will burst because they are dried out, and have lost their strength, their
ability to hold what is inside. And soon leak, and then let go. A look into a
person’s walk with Christ, as many try to act heavenly, but inside live like
hell. Church has changed them, and Jesus may be just another item in their
garage of hearts. Among the junk, the old exercise machines, and other things
they will get around to someday, they add the gospel, and after a while, when
nothing changes, they go back to what they were before. The garage still
overcrowded, and Jesus among the goodies. Not lost, but misplaced, He’s in
there somewhere, and someday they will find him again. Someday......
In trying to add Jesus to our life, we haven’t given up the old man, or as
scripture tells us to let the old man die. We are new creatures in Christ, the
old is passed away, but we like to hold onto some things in our past, and gently
Jesus gets squeezed out. We forget our bodies are temporal, and soon wear out,
mostly revealed when older and we with we had taken better care of ourselves.
But as we begin to miss Jesus, as the spirit calls us to repent and return, we
start to remove things from our over crowed garage of life, and soon we find
him, make room for him, and he takes over the spot in our heart God formed just
for him to live in. We see things his way, and the stuff we had cluttered our
life with we get rid of. Wondering how we ever hung onto it. Sound familiar?
We come to Jesus and get excited, life overwhelms, we fall back to what is
familiar and soon we are living a life not intended. Maybe a day or two of
cleaning out the garage is in order. Not move it to another place, but throw it
out. How many times have you said “so that’s where I put it..” don’t ever have
to say that about Jesus. Or be forced to lie when you can’t find it, “Oh it may
look like a mess, but I know where everything is,” until you cannot find it.
Or him.
So make room in your old garage for the new car or motorcycle of Jesus.
Welcome him as you would a friend, and find out when you get to know him what
you have been missing. With the SUV becoming the vehicle of choice for America,
many of them are too high to fit in the garage. Why would you buy something
like that? After your home, the car is the largest purchase you will make,
unless it says HD on it. Yet the most valuable thing in life, Jesus gets the
same treatment. Clean up the garage, and clean up your life. Put out the
welcome sign of love, and let Jesus draw others to you as he did you to him.
How many chances do we miss to be blessed because we have no place to visit?
How important is a place to hang out? Seems a story about a couple who found no
room at the inn is pertinent here. And Jesus was born in the stable, the garage
of its time. Are we missing the most important part of our house by neglecting
it? A life is rather cold until love comes into it. Until something is placed
of value in it. My life is filled with Jesus and the blessings from him. Stop
by, if the door is open, I’ll but the first round of Cokes, as the crowd never
gets smaller. Just like the crowd following Jesus. What happens in the garage
should never stay in the garage. Open the door and let’s ride. You may be
amazed that your neighbors never knew you had a new car, or were a Christian.
Time to take both out and brag. What is in your garage will say a lot about
what is on your heart. But it is what’s inside that counts.
Somehow Ward Cleaver found space in his garage for his boys and time spent
with them. Imagine all the things he left to the Beaver!
love with compassion,
Mike
matthew25biker.blogspot.com