Daily Greed

You know the feeling of searching for “the perfect car?” Of course. It’s endemic to car folks of all varieties. There’s the hunt for the perfect first car, perfect daily driver, perfect weekend car, perfect track rat, perfect drift missile, perfect off-road beast, perfect first car for your kid, or perfect investment vehicle. In the hunt for more, better, and amazing, plenty of good-enough contenders get passed over.

Here’s one: The Saab 9000 Turbo hatchback. Here’s a machine with a 2.0-liter 16-valve turbocharged and intercooled inline-four with a counter-rotating balance shaft for smoothness, and a 5-speed manual transmission. After a few years on the market, big changes in 1992 brought a displacement boost to 2.3 liters, good for 200 horsepower and 244 lb-ft of torque, and a traction control system that limited torque steer. Back then, it cost $36,000 (or $5,000 more than an FC RX-7) while Volvo 850 Turbos topped out at $30,000. 

But that was 1992. Today, they’re cheap though not flawless, and great though not the greatest. The question is: is it good enough for you?

Contentment doesn’t come naturally to humans, who were wired to long for the perfection that only comes from God. God is well aware of this, which is why his blessings are perfect fixes to temporary human problems, but not perfect enough to provide perfect satisfaction. Here’s one example of this:

“In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.’ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.’” (Exodus 16:2-4)

Perhaps you can relate to the key themes here: ingratitude, disrespect, being a whiny brat, etc. But God has even more to say with this story, made fully complete when God retold this story in Deuteronomy (literally, the “second giving of the law”). God explained what he wanted his people to know about this story: that God provided this daily sustenance “to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3). 

God provides everything a person needs to get through a given day, none of which will ultimately quench the hunger for perfection. It is no mystery why Jesus quoted this passage to combat temptation (Matthew 4:4). He was about to begin an extremely challenging ministry. He would yearn for perfection and completion when things inevitably got tough. So he reminded himself, and believers who would hear his words, that complete satisfaction is only found in the pursuit of God.

If this sounds strange, maybe it’s time for a new approach to perfection. Try looking for flaws. When something doesn’t make you feel perfectly content, explore that feeling of dissatisfaction. Call it a God-hunger, and let it motivate you for your journey toward heaven, one day at a time.

No Saab is ever a number’s car, but here’s a big one: 56.5. That’s the measurement, in cubic feet, of cargo space behind the front seats. The rear seat bottoms pivot forward and the split-folding seats fold flat. This gives you, Saab 9000 owner, plenty of room under that rear hatch for doo-dads, gadgets, thingamajigs, and other possessions that serve as reminders of both the perfect provision and imperfect contentment all around you.

John V16 is the intersection of God and cars. Please support our work and donate a V16-powered 1940 Cadillac Series 90 Sixteen to John V16. Or share this article with a friend.