Race Car Reunion
The closest thing car folks get to tear-jerking moments in a sentimental holiday movie is a race car reunion. After decades apart, a legendary driver sometimes gets the chance to lower his aging body into a priceless racing vehicle – say, a 1952 Jaguar C-Type – and then drive it at 140 mph like he’s competing for pole position all over again. It’s beautiful.
The engineers behind that car remember the car differently. It was an obsession, a risk, an investment, and a gamble. But it’s over. The technology and construction aren’t experiments and projections anymore. They have been severely tested, and the reunion is now a reckoning of sorts. “Yes,” the engineer may say, “I equipped you with experimental disc brakes, knowing drivers may not trust you and public opinion would be against you. To gain an advantage against the competition, your skin was very thin aluminum, and although I anticipated dents and damage, it’s still painful to see.”
This must be a taste of how God relates to his creation. For example, consider what God said when he appeared to the woman who would give birth to Samson:
“You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” (Judges 13:3-5)
God knew Samson would be born miraculously, and that he would consider himself miraculous. God knew Samson would be strong, and how he would be tempted to feel invincible and rely on his own strength. God set Samson apart from everyone, and he misinterpreted that as having the freedom to operate under a different set of rules.
God built Samson perfectly, knowing Samson would act imperfectly.
God’s relationship to all his people must be no different. When you were born, he sent you into the world with spiritual gifts, talents, and unique abilities, and provided settings and circumstances to help sharpen these gifts, with the foreknowledge of just how horrifically you might mess up.
You probably believe that God knows what you do. Perhaps now you see that God knows why: he designed you. He supervised and implemented every inch of your construction. He knows what your limitations are, and in what situations you are most likely to misapply your strengths to something other than what he intended.
If you’ve sinned like this and you want to talk to God about it, listen to him. Imagine him as a perfect race car engineer, saying, “Yes, I gave you a warrior's heart, confident that you would fight injustice and oppression, yet knowing you could be tempted to lash out in anger against people you love. Yes, I gave you great wisdom, enthusiastically, so you could plumb the depths of my law and my ways, although at times I knew you would begin to form philosophies that contradict me. And now I receive you, just as you are – imperfect and slightly damaged – with love, because I know how I made you: with purpose."
Jaguar won Le Mans outright in 1951 and 1953 with their 200-horsepower C-Types. Just 43 roadsters were built, plus 11 race versions. During reunions with former racers or engineers, one thing always absent is shame. It is no failure on the part of a C-Type to return with a scratch, dent, or blown hose fitting. The race has been completed. The history books have been printed. God receives you the same way. Even if it’s been awhile, he is happy to see you again.
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