New Car Fever

For years when I taught car salesman the importance of staying in contact with previous customers I would quote a statistic that 33% of families that buy a new car will buy a second one within a year.  I went hunting for such a study on the internet but can’t find one and I may have gotten that 40 years ago from a GM training course so that information if ever true is at least very old, BUT, I will tell you that I have seen it for myself many, many, many times.

It works like this; the husband gets new car fever and goes out and buys a new car and it won’t be long before you see the wife, or vice versa. We even taught sales people to work the “Keeping up with the Joneses” angle, we would call the neighbors of a new car purchaser to ask if they had noticed their neighbors new car. The same idea would work in contacting fellow club members of a new car purchaser if you knew of a club association, Lions, Sertoma etc…

So I am not saying in anyway that buying another car or even a new car is bad, I would just caution the motivation. If my motivation is in anyway connected to, “It’s only fair” or “I deserve” or I’ll  just go with a good biblical word “Covet”, then I am being manipulated by the world, the flesh or the devil.  Any of that unholy trinity means trouble because contentment will never be found here. Ecclesiastes 5:10  “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.”

So where do I find car contentment? For me it comes back to that faith of a child  Matthew 18:3. When my grand-daughter was younger she would scream with excitement to ride in “Old Red”, my 1995 Dodge Dakota while my older children would hide their face in shame to be seen in a such a heap. Now at seven she is beginning to compare my old truck to her daddy’s new truck, enough to make me cry, really.  For me I still marvel at how fun it is to even drive, old red has a manual transmission and I love to shift gears or hold the hills at a light with the clutch.  Truly I delight in the mechanical marvel of it all God really has given us something to marvel at with any car.

True some vehicles have their issues even Old Red has a few but then again so do I, I call them Old Red’s thorns in the flesh; it will overheat if you idle too long or in bad traffic I really have to baby it there so those are their to buffet me from old red pride. Yes, “His grace is sufficient for me” what amazing words of contentment. God’s Grace, (I’m his favorite) so naturally God has me in the perfect vehicle for such a time as this.  I trust He will let me know when it’s time for a change , after all would you let your favorite child go without something you knew would be good for them.

This is easy for me with cars, but not so easy on other things at times, Like “Bills”. So each of us has his thorns in the flesh. I am thankful that if I can see it, they will turn me back to an understanding that I am God’s favorite to such an extent He sent His ONLY Son not only to earth but to die on a brutal cross that I would have a chance at the complete contentment of eternal life…AMEN

 

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