Not From the Source
As an automaker, Rolls-Royce has a peculiar tradition of not building all of its cars. Some of its stateliest models – such as the 1947 Silver Wraith, 1959 Phantom V – were not available from the factory with a body. Rolls-Royce worked with “approved suppliers,” including Park Ward, H.J. Mulliner, and Hooper to provide hand-built and hand-tailored bodies specific to a client’s wishes.
Other models were available with Rolls-Royce bodies, or, for an up-charge, a coach-built body. The 1959 Silver Cloud II was among these. It featured the first of the Rolls-Royce V8s, a 6.2-liter alloy unit with unspecified power (Rolls-Royce traditionally didn’t disclose output). Shockingly, an open version of the Silver Cloud II was never offered. If you wanted a Rolls convertible, you had to get your body elsewhere.
Granted, those coachbuilders did fine work (it wasn’t at all like bolting a fiberglass body onto your used Volkswagen in the 1970s). And clientele at that level are used to bespoke options; if you’re already commissioning fitted Louis Vuitton luggage and a Lalique hood ornament, maybe a Mulliner body is alright.
But at a certain point, a person must decide for themselves: if Rolls-Royce doesn’t offer it, I don’t want it.
When any number of paths, pleasures, and philosophies lie distinctly outside of your Biblical understanding of what God has planned for you, you have the option of trying to graft it into your faith, or living without it.
A bunch of people in the Old Testament found themselves at this crossroads. God spoke directly to Abram about his descendants (Genesis 12), and later, about exactly how this would happen (Genesis 15). Yet Abram and his wife, Sarai, became impatient, and decided to help speed things up by operating outside of God’s plan. Instead of having his child with Sarai, Abram had his child with their servant Hagar.
Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:30-38) and the Benjamites (Judges 21) responded to God’s plan with similar creative license. They trusted God, kind of. Just not enough to trust his means of bringing his prophecy to fruition. Because of their obsession with leaving behind a legacy, or perhaps because they found some aspects of their will hard to surrender, they insisted on doing what Rolls-Royce clientele did with the Silver Cloud II: graft two things together.
Followers of Christ today find themselves at this crossroads on a daily basis. When it feels safer to hold a grudge than to forgive. When you know your personal or relational expression of sexuality is outside of what God wants for us, his children. When anger is a lot easier to show than compassion. When greed in one area doesn’t seem as bad as greed in other areas. When you actually are a little ashamed to share your beliefs out loud.
Sometimes it’s easier to see our flawed thinking in someone else’s decision-making. See if these sound familiar:
Abram (and Sarai): this isn’t exactly what God had in mind, but if the outcome is ultimately in line with God’s plan, kind of, then maybe…
Lot (and his daughters): since I’ve been abusing alcohol and not in my right mind, and since I’ve just gone through some trauma, it doesn’t seem so bad if…
Benjamites (and the Israelites): these circumstances are outside of my control, and basically forced my hand. I don’t know what to do, so let’s just go with what feels best, which means…
Crucially, all the characters in these scenarios found themselves at the crossroads where dedication to God meets desire for something else. When we want something badly enough, talking ourselves into getting it outside of God’s will becomes too easy.
God knows how badly we want bad things sometimes. Yes, he forgives that too, amazingly. Being in awe of that love and forgiveness is actually one of the best ways to keep that flawed, obsessively desirous thinking from running our lives. Devoting ourselves to such a forgiving God is, ultimately, better than getting that thing we want: “You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” (Psalm 16:11) and “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house f my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” (Psalm 84:10)
Fewer than 300 Silver Cloud II convertibles were built, with bodies mostly by Mulliner. Just a portion of these were left-hand drive models, and examples rarely come up for sale. When they do, they’re as expensive as a new Rolls: figure $400,000 or more. Getting one is just one successful bank robbery away – which probably isn’t part of God’s plan for your life.
