Life Goals
In 1963, three 426-cid V8s were listed as options on all Dodge products (except the Dart). The 415-horsepower Max Wedge variant added just $545 to the $2,961 price tag of a Polara – the deal of the decade for an engine that Dodge officially recommended for drag purposes only – yet only seven people bought that combo.
For around $3,500 in 1963, you could get something that’s now more valuable, rare, desirable, potent, and legendary than basically anything else you could’ve spent that money on. But think of what you would have had to face during those 60 years: fuel costs, fuel shortages, oil crises, recessions, ridicule at driving something so impractical, high insurance prices, and a mountain of new tires to replace the ones you vaporized at the drag strip.
So is it worth the trouble? It depends on your view of suffering. Everyone puts up with some level of suffering (diet and exercise, financial responsibility, obeying the speed limit while 415 horsepower strains under your right foot) to attain something they desire. Even Christ-followers feel a bit squeezed sometimes. If this is you, maybe you’ve wondered if your struggle to follow God is worth it. Paul, the author of Philippians, has some encouragement:
“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead… Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:10-11, 13-14)
You, and believers in Philippi, and anyone driving a Hemi through fuel crises and oil embargoes, are not immune from suffering. Maybe your suffering takes the form of enduring cultural trends that don’t always line up with your beliefs, or scrutiny from a friend who holds a worldview that isn’t found in the Bible (or one based on a Biblical understanding a little different than yours). Maybe you suffer for someone in your family who chooses something other than God’s power to address their suffering. The Bible never trivializes this suffering, yet it contextualizes it with what it says about God’s provision.
Spend some time contemplating “the goal” Paul talked about. Some say the goal is eternal life, with God in perfect unity with his people. Others say that it’s something attainable on earth, such as overcoming an obstacle, gaining a new understanding of God’s role in your life, or learning to have peace with people around you.
It can be both. You have the promise of eternal life in the future, yet right now you have peace that passes all understanding, unity with God, adoption by God, and identity in God. While living in a world plagued by consequences of sin, you have hope in Jesus who conquered sin, and God’s forgiveness of your sin. God invites you to press toward goals every day, while hoping for the goal that will happen one day, and only once: God’s redemption of all creation, when you’ll be in his presence, valued for exactly what you are.
Each one of the seven Max Wedge Dodge Polaras already accomplished its goal from the moment it was bought and every day thereafter. At the drag strip, it destroyed an entire generation of Chevy II Novas, Chevelle Malibus, Falcon Futura Sprints, and just about everything else. These days, most repose in glory in museums and climate-controlled garages. Trying to see one is a good goal for any Mopar fan.
