As regular readers of this blog…..will no doubt know and be bored by, I purchased a 2006 Grand Vitara a couple of months back. I have not been slow in modifying it slightly, getting it ready for beach work, towing and driving country roads at night. Nothing too serious, just making it a little more useable. Every review listed the Grand Vitara well ahead of its other SUV rivals in the off-road stakes. Namely the Forester and RAV4. The Grand Vitara has a good chassis, High/ Low Range and even their own version of a diff locker. Not a true diff locker, but one that limits wheel spin when under load by distributing power to the opposing wheel. This puts it streets ahead of the Forester and RAV4.

Suspension.

The Achilles heal of this model is the clearance and suspension. With a move to a more road happy vehicle, Suzuki compromised on the clearance of this model. I, and others, have found the clearance off-road to be an issue. King Springs supply four uprated springs which provide 35-40 Mill of lift while using standard shocks. Perhaps just as helpful is their stiffness. I actually find it performs better on road as well, less body roll and feels more secure on the road. To say nothing of it no longer scraping the towbar on kerbs!

Recovery Gear

All snide comments can be inserted here! If you drive a Suzuki, you will need recovery gear. Some will say its to recover the ambitious driver in the Toyota, others will say so the Toyota can recover you! Either way a proper snatch point is needed. The tow recovery points on the front are only good for mild use, not the sort of pressure a snatch strap yields. I have purchased a good insert which goes into the Haymen Rheese tow point and it becomes a good recovery point at the rear. In order to get a proper one at the front, a bit of metal work would be needed. I also have a reasonable air compressor, snatch strap, shovel and cable ties.

Spotlights

I like spotlights, always have. But I have never had a car as good as this one before, so the cheap $50 I found in the bargain bin at K-Mart were not going to suffice. I did some research and Narva Ultima 175 seemed to be a good compromise on my budget hampered aspirations. All my car mods come out of my pocket money I save up per week. Fortunately I found these on Ebay at $80 cheaper than the cheapest price at Auto-Shops. (I paid $169 Aus) The Suzukis have a weird wiring set-up where the high beams are positively wired. This means they always have power going to them, even when they are off. This makes traditional relay set-up redundant. Fortunately after some research on ‘Auszookers‘, a fantastic Suzuki owners forum, I found a good wiring diagram. The other problem I had was that with this modern car, getting a wire through the firewall to the switch was quite difficult. I had to almost dismantle the engine bay fuse box to get to the bonnet cable grommet. Here I could poke the needed wires through.

Repco supplied a better switch than the dud rocker switch Narva supply with their lights. I also had to buy another 7 metres of wiring as the wiring that came with the spotlights was woefully inadequate. I have configured the combination spotlights with the spread beam facing the roos bouncing from the side and the pencil beam to scare off the cats in the middle of the road.

Next

I have a number of other things I wish to do to the car, but the one I am saving up for now is a UHF 80 channel radio

I wonder how much I embarrass Jesus. I know I must. So the following is written having said that.

There is a church which has been receiving a lot of attention lately for their end times prophecy. They believed Jesus was coming back for His followers on the 21st. The 21st has come and gone, and Jesus has not come.

Its a shame that they did not take the words of Jesus as seriously as they said they did. He said Himself, ‘no man will know the day or the hour’, referring to the time He was returning.

The leader raised over a million dollars to promote the message. Its unfortunate this money was not spent on something far more inline with Jesus’ teaching, like feeding the poor.

Reality is though that a group of Christians raising a million dollars and feeding the poor would not get anywhere near the publicity this man has got. Outlandish statements are like that, with a high chance of spectacular failure.

There are many lessons the whole event tells us about Christianity, the media and the deep human desire for a better day.

In the meanwhile, instead of focusing on misguided Christians leaders, media which is hungry for a scandal, and those that would choose to laugh, I want to instead focus on what God truly wants. That is wisdom. We Christians can’t control what other Christians do in Christs name, but we can control what we do in Jesus name.

One of the lessons God is teaching me at the moment is this one…

⁵ Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.^{[a] 7} Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and shun evil.

(Proverbs 3.5-6)

This is a tough lesson to learn. While we all pay lip service to trusting God, for many of us, if you scratch deep enough, we trust our own opinion.

God’s opinion can be assumed, based on how we feel about a situation, how we choose to interpret scripture. But when you need God to provide in a supernatural way, there is a real need to trust Him. You can’t assume, you have to wait.

This is where I am at the moment.

At Church , Inglewood Church, we need to move. Perhaps not for reasons that seem obvious. Its not because we want things set up nice and easy for us, not so we are comfortable. In fact its the opposite. We need to move because we have passed the point of having enough room for growth and are rapidly heading towards stagnation.

And having come to the end of my ability and resources to make this happen, I wait on God, as does our Church. So I am taking this promise, claiming it. In all your ways ‘acknowledge Him’ and ‘He will make your paths straight’.

Lord….I acknowledge you in this, please direct us, and make the way forward clear.

….here are some thoughts from this weeks message.

“We have the bible and that is almost perhaps a theological or intellectual framework for how we understand God.
Then we have an emotional reaction or understanding of God, and that is fuelled by such words as Father, Creator, Judge, Lord, Master…Jesus.
Perhaps we think about how we have been treated by our father, by our mother, by teachers, by authority figures in our lives…and we apply the emotions and how we feel about those people to God.
That is, at some points at least, not accurate to God. particularly if what we read in the Bible, its different to how we feel about God.
So the question for me is that all of us are meant to have a personal relationship with God. We should be able to explain the reason for the hope that lies within us…we should be able to explain to someone how we feel about God….. how we relate to God!
Can you do that?
Could you explain to someone what your relationship with God is like?
Is it a distant father son relationship…where you can never talk about something real?
Is it a teacher student relationship where God tells you when recess and lunch is? And for the rest of the time you have to sit there and listen?
What is God like to you?

I went to this conference last year. A great time for blokes to get together, have a laugh, be inspired and have some much needed time out.
Encourage you to get down there and invite a mate.

This is one of the best pieces of advertising around at the moment…

The feeling this ad gives you is of escape, mateship, fun…outdoors, adventure.

I particularly like the scene of the older guy with the rain pouring down on his face. Stirs such a sense in you of wanting to be there..in that moment.

The Dockers have had such a good start to the year.

Depleted with injuries during the pre-season, and with no expectations to do well, the first part of the year was very good. If not for some errant kicking against Geelong, Fremantle could be without loss, and entrenched in the top four.

Unfortunately we met our ‘bogey’ side this week….Richmond. For whatever reason, even when doing really well, and the Tigers not…they seem to match up well on the Dockers. And so it proved this week.

The disappointing part of the loss was the fact that for the first three quarters, the Dockers looked like taking a commanding lead. But we never capatilised on that. And to the Tigers credit, they kept coming. And when it mattered, they seemed to take their energy levels up a cog.

The way Freo capitulated towards the end of the fourth quarter was the most disappointing aspect of the game.