Personalized to a Point
The 2022 Hyundai Elantra N is a hot rod you can customize from inside the car. It has three suspension adjustments, three steering-feel settings, and two settings for the electronically controlled limited-slip differential. You can make adjustments to the responsiveness of the throttle, the intrusiveness of the stability control, and the level of assistance from its rev-matching system. If you don’t like the way its heavily boosted 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine sounds from the driver’s seat, merely adjust the Active Sound Design engine volume system. There are five (five!) settings. Oh, and three exhaust modes.
Go ahead and set it up the way you want. It’s a Chipotle menu of customizability – a spicy performance burrito all wrapped up and ready to grill and thrill. Got it? Okay, now floor it. You have 276 horsepower at your disposal, taking you through the quarter-mile in 13.8 seconds. Now change the settings a little, maybe trying Active Sound Design level 2, and floor it again. Interesting. That’s another 13.8-second quarter-mile run.
No matter how you try to change it, the Elantra N is a 276-horsepower machine. It weighs 3,190 pounds whether you turn rev-matching on or off. Its 19” tires have a 245-mm section width that might feel different through the steering wheel depending on your desired level of steering assistance, but they are still 19 inches.
Throughout the constant changes in human history, God has remained God. Even the name he uses to describe himself is a picture of constancy:
“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘IAM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.” (Exodus 3:14-15)
In Hebrew, the original language “The Lord” is spoken as “Yahweh.” It literally means “He is,” which, grammatically, is the third-person of “I am.” So when God says “I am,” humans have echoed throughout history: “He is.”
God cannot be changed to be something he isn’t, despite the efforts of a changing humanity. Sometimes this feels convicting:
When you wonder if God is still the authority over what’s right and wrong, he is.
When you wonder if God is still the author of the only book on life and truth worth reading, he is.
When you wonder if God is actually watching over every member of his creation and seeing every hurtful action, he is.
Sometimes it’s comforting:
When someone you love dies and you wonder if God is the same God who promises to be with you always, he is.
When you look in the mirror and can only see your sin staring back at you and you wonder if the God of mercy and forgiveness is still in the business of forgiving, he is.
When your heart breaks for the pain around you and the damage you see throughout the world and you wonder if God is still sovereign over creation, he is.
You can’t change God. Fortunately, he changes you, customizes you, and fine-tunes you to be the person he created you to be. You’re completely unique from all the other Christ-followers out there, even if you share the same God-given heart.
Maybe you’ve had Hyundai Elantras in the past. Maybe you’ve turned off stability control. Well, the Elantra has changed. In the 2022 Elantra N, stability control is fully defeatable, but with 289 lb-ft of torque at just 2100 RPM, perhaps this isn’t the best idea. Perhaps it’s time for a change.
