A Guaranteed Bumpy Road
If you were a cash-in-hand buyer waiting for the release of the Buick Regal Sportback wagon in late 2017, you got to watch enthusiasm for the car spike and crater pretty quickly. Everyone was initially excited about this affordable turbo wagon. The Opel Insignia-based compact wagon had the sport-tuned bones of a European sedan with American-sized interior space and a low $27,000 base price that only GM’s global production network could offer. Base versions came with a 250-horsepower turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder driving the front wheels with GM’s nine-speed auto. An all-wheel-drive version had a torque-vectoring rear axle. All of this sounded sounded promising.
But excitement isn’t the same thing as demand. After putting down your deposit, you probably started seeing more and more disappointment directed toward the Regal Sportback. It wouldn’t please the 1990s Buick Roadmaster fans, for the Old Ironsides LT1 wouldn’t rumble within it. European wagon nerds refused to leave their used Volvo V70 Polestars, and the tuner crowd wouldn’t leave their WRX wagons for something with Buick shields on the steering wheel and a PRNDL shifter between the seats.
Your sorrow at the Regal Sportback’s mistreatment mixed with your joy in driving it home from the dealership. That’s what some of the most faithful people in the Bible experienced when God’s path sometimes included some bumps in the road.
During God’s famous meeting with Abram, where he established a covenant (a promise they were both bound to), he promised Abram descendants as numerous as the stars. But he wanted Abram to have glimpses of the path they would take together, so he shared something a little less encouraging:
“As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” (Genesis 15:12-16)
God’s promise of descendants didn’t change, kind of like the Buick Regal Sportback didn’t become a worse car because people decided they didn’t like it. God’s blessings are good even if they are delivered in a way that seems unpleasant. God is guiding your path even if it looks bumpy.
God offers the same promise today: He will always be with you, and he will always accomplish his life-saving work. If he spoke to people as explicitly as he did in Abram’s time, his promises might sound like this:
“Yes, I will give you a stronger faith in my existence and my presence in your life, and you’ll receive this when your faith is tested.”
“Yes, I will give you wisdom in decision-making, which you’ll discover after carving time out of your daily schedule for time to read my Word, the Bible.”
“Yes, I will satisfy the longing in your heart, and you’ll feel that satisfaction when other things you long for – a significant other, a soccer championship, a Buick Regal Sportwagon – fail you and you find satisfaction in me.”
In God’s promise to Abram, he even includes hope for people who sound like they’re in for a really rough time: the Amorites. God promises to displace and even destroy them – eventually, but not immediately. Perhaps this is another answer to prayer; maybe Abram or Sarai had been praying that God would give their neighbors, the Amorites, time to leave their destructive, sinful ways before it was too late. Yes, God answers that prayer too.
Eventually, Buick revealed the Regal Sportback GS, with Brembo brakes, wider wheels and tires, adjustable dampers, sportier seats and bodywork, and a 310-horsepower V6. As a Regal Sportback owner, your emotional path looked something like this: 1) Ecstatic joy at its introduction, 2) disappointment when it wasn’t a hot seller, and finally, 3) ecstatic joy once again when used examples are finding homes with people who can appreciate it for what it is. Looks like Buick’s promise has been fulfilled.
