Cruisin’

Our old(est) suburban was purchased in 1994, which seems like a long time ago until you consider this particular vehicle was a 1977.  Yep, complete with the two-tone orange/beige paint job—it was known as “the rolling pumpkin” at the mechanic shop.  No computer, no electric windows, and someone even had enough sense of humor to install glass packs.  Man, you could hear me coming down a hill from a mile away!  It idled so loudly that one morning the sonic waves set of the alarm on the fancy car next to it in the high school parking lot.

Now that was a car.  More like a Viking longboat, with three rows of benches and seat belts for nine.  Alas, time marches relentlessly onward as little by little things began to fall apart.  Eventually I wouldn’t dare roll down the back-hatch window since it had begun sticking, and finally the roof fabric was sagging like a canopy. 

One day, I had driven my car for some city shopping and realized I could safely leave items covered in the back with the doors unlocked (since they had also begun sticking) because no one in their right mind would bother thinking anything of value was in a car of such…vintage. 

Little did they know…

Some who are poor pretend to be rich;
    others who are rich pretend to be poor.

Maybe “some who are poor” have an identity crisis that posing as rich could alleviate, or so they think.  I wonder at our debt-saturated culture, a mindset that places prestige and ego before prudence and economy.  Not that there’s inherit virtue in poverty, but certainly there is in contentment.

And it could be that “others who are rich” have had enough of superficial relationships based on their annual income, and are looking for a loyalty and permanence that money cannot provide.  While it may be difficult to believe, handling large sums money is a big temptation and a huge character challenge.

Not that I don’t like having pleasant things, because I do, but debt-free living makes me happy also.  Besides, it’s actually rather nice being the Jones’ that no one has to keep up with. 

Proverbs 13:7 Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.