Last week we picked up our new SUV. It took a while to get here and I had to take the color that they had. I was not enthused about the color but what could I do? Wait another month?
I know that cars can be like clothes. I want the way I dress to express something or to project an image of me that I want people to see. I realize a car can also be me trying to make a statement. I know that that is a big part of the reason that I would never ever buy a minivan. Now no offense to you minivan owners but I just don’t want to make that statement. I always remember the scene in the movie, “Nine Months”, where the tortured Hugh Grant goes to the car dealer to trade in his slick Porsche convertible for a minivan. This is a car guy nightmare!
Thankfully, I have outgrown some of my need for the “car statement” thing. Watching “Schindler’s List” again the other night only confirmed this. At the end of the movie as Schindler is to flee with his wife in his fancy car at the end of the WWII, he is weeping as he tells the 1100 Jews that he saved from the gas chamber by blackmailing the Nazis, that he should have blackmailed the Nazis with the car to save the lives of more Jews.
This moment crystalizes for me the futility of stuff. I place too high a value on stuff. Too often I want my stuff to impress others instead of using my stuff to help others. I am determined to work this idea deeper into me.
What’s the point of accumulating stuff? There was a humorous but scary bumper sticker a few years ago, “He who dies with the most toys wins!” I think that the opposite can be true. The Bible says that it is very hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. I don’t want to die with the most toys. I want to leave this place with a legacy of helping others and valuing what is important and it ain’t stuff!
I just hope that in this godly quest to keep stuff in its proper perspective I don’t one day have to buy a minivan!