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Thursday, May 12, 2005
I never realized how much I was my car's slave until I went to New York City.
My sister moved to Manhattan and my family and I went for a visit. We were there a week and never needed a vehcile...and we went all over the place, too. We did Times Square, Broadway, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Museum of Natural History and a variety of restaurants. It was my first experience with public transportation on a consistent scale and I started asking a whole lot of questions. Generally, these were related to how you might get to a more remote location or visit friends far from the subway hubs that frequent the city.
She answered those logistics questions by explaining that you could combine a series of trains and busses and if that didn't complete the journey in question, taxicabs. "The system works really well no matter where you're headed," she said. She even covered how other potential hassles like oversized packages or luggage might be solved.
And then she got to cost, telling me that all her transportation needs for the month (which included a couple of limos to the airport--which, in NYC are actually cheaper than cab rides) were around $225 a month.
So I said that was a car payment...to which she challenged me to figure out all my transportation needs. I started to do the checklist:
Gasoline.
State Inspection.
Oil changes.
Registration and tags.
Monthly payments for ownership.
Tolls on certain roads.
Maintaining the car, everything from repairs to wiper blades to cleaning supplies.
I could go on, but I also didn't bring up "time" issues, like being able to read or time wasted sitting in traffic. Or health issues, like the average New Yorker walks about 6.5 miles a day, while the average commuter walks 2.5 or something like that.
I was spending pretty much three times per month what my sister did on transportation, not to mention the "no cost" loss of time and such.
I was a slave to my own car...and I didn't even know it!
And that's just my car...don't even get me started on what it costs to own and maintain a home...not to mention the time issues involved there.
Or hobbies.
And all of a sudden, on the plane flight back to Texas, it dawned on me that you really can't serve two masters, like from Matthew 6 yesterday. That's the danger of possessions and such is that they take time and money to upkeep and maintain all the while causing you to focus on them and lose sight of God in the process.
Our "things" have a way of demanding our time: The yard needs mowing. The television needs to be fixed. The computer has a virus we have to fix. The guitar needs practicing. The car needs washing. The exercising needs doing so we get a gym membership. And we get focused on self and what we want, and it's so easy to get bogged down in the mundane--
SERVING these good things--
--and drift in our relationship with God. It isn't that we hate God or anything, He kinda gets away from us.
In fact, verse 24 tells us we will "hold on" to one and "despise the other." Wow. In "holding on" to our possessions we eventually despise God. Of course, the converse is true.
Part of the "despising" was alluded to in verse 21 that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
I'll use another "car" experience to illustrate this: I had a pretty cool car when I was 16. I spent some of my money on more than gas and oil. I purchased some really sharp rims and tires. I upgraded the engine. I got some pretty cool stereo equipment installed. I'd wash and wax it on Saturdays. I really did get to where I loved that car...my money was into it.
Nothing could set me off more than a breakdown, or a door ding, or the stolen equalizer I wrote about yesterday...because I cared about the car I put my money into it, and because I put my money into it, I cared more about the car. It was a vicious cycle.
And, it's only in loving God and getting a proper perspective on our stuff that we can "hold on" to Him. I mean, the "stuff" isn't inherently bad, but serving it and "holding on" to it will drive us away from God. You know, my little public transportation experience actually caused me to "despise" the money and time I spend on my vehicle now because I simply have a new perspective on an present reality.
What should scare us is that we can simply check our desire to "hold on" to God by checking out our receipts on the stuff we buy and looking at our day planners...
So, for today, what are some possessions that you don't realize that you're actually serving, and what steps can you take to put them in proper perspective? Is there a time when you've changed perspectives? What did you learn?
Brent 4:30 AM
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