The Government Gets God?

Doug brought home a bouncing baby car today. It's a good thing even though he said it was shameful to get rid of any vehicle with only 175,000 miles on it. Around here, a vehicle isn't even broken in well until it rolls over 200,000 miles.

The Jeep's transmission was going (for the second time) and, as he so eloquently put it, it was spitting more than a camel. So, with the government's Cash for Clunkers program offering him $4500 to sentence his already-dying vehicle to destruction, well, that was just too perfect to pass up, especially since the program is only funded up to a certain amount. It was literally now or never.

The new arrival is grey, so that rules us black-and-white people out as biological parents. I dislike grey in areas of life, in Scripture, and on cars. But since this is the second time in two weeks that we've tried to buy this car (and both times, the color choice available was grey), I'm thinking God is trying to tell me something.

What surprises me most is that somebody hasn't picked up on the irony of how a government program is mimicking the pattern for God's plan of salvation.

Consider the similarities.

God approached an old clunker like me who was dying a little more each day in my sin. I had nothing good within me that I could offer Him to free me from my imminent eternal death.

Then, miraculously, He offered me not $4500 but rather His son Jesus' life for this clunker. WHY? Sure, I may have looked morally good on the outside to the passerby, but He knew what was going on under the hood, in my soul--my sinful thoughts, my problems with anger, my tendency toward pride.

He made the trade anyway, giving His life for mine and totally replacing my old, sinful self with a brand new soul.

When I accepted the offer, my old sinful life was destroyed. I was made anew, alive in Him. My life was forever changed.

God is patiently waiting for all clunkers to trade in their old lives for a new life in Him. But God's patience has a limit. Time is running out. It's now or never.

Such a simple plan; yet, so complex. Still makes me shake my head in amazement.