I got my license when I was 17.  It was a big deal for me.  My dad gave me a car that I could drive.  It really wasn’t like he didn’t have a few extra cars laying around.  He’s a bit of a collector in that department.  I pretty much got the one car that all the good parts had been stripped from and had all the second-hand parts that He really didn’t need for any of his other projects.  It had two different colored fenders.  I think one of the fenders matched one of the doors but nothing really matched the rest of the car.  There was two bucket seats and a stearing wheel.  No carpet, no backseat, no dash to speak of.  Just a metal plate that kind of went where the dashboard might have been.  Wires pretty much hung everywhere back up underneath of that metal peice.  It was a Dodge Aspen/Volare.  Most of the parts had been interchanged between years, and multiple cars so I can’t really tell you what year the car was, or even if it was the Aspen or the Volare. Let me put it this way.  Nobody ever… ever asked me for a ride anywhere.

But going to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles was a fun experience.  First of all, I went inside and took the written test.  Passed with flying colors.  Now there were a few different cars in the parking lot that day and when I came out of the offices and headed to the parking lot with the cop who was administrating the test, there was a certain mounting fear that could be seen on his face as I walked past each of the pretty new cars sitting in the parking lot.  I think in the last desperate moments he walked to the wrong car hoping that I was the one mistaken.  But all fears were confirmed the moment I opened the car door.

I got in and reached over to open the door from the inside.  The outside door handle didn’t quite work… at all.  Granted, I was nervous but I think it helped a bit knowing that the cop in the passenger seat seemed more nervous than I.  You know those safety checks they make you do.  Do your turn signals work?  Does your horn blow?  Do your seatbelts fasten?  Are all your mirrors still attached?  Do all tires have the proper amount of air in them for the psi rating?  Do you have a spare with you? You know, thinking back, I don’t think some of those questions were really on his little checklist.

After about five minutes of interrogation, I was allowed to start the car and commence the test.  The car roared to life.  Well, it wasn’t as quiet as most of the newer models on the road and it didn’t have anywhere the sound proofing considering there was no carpet and it was all bare metal.  Everything that could rattle did, and we rumbled out to the street.

I drove that car for another two years or so back and forth to school, work and youth group.  I think that’s one of the things in my life that strengthened my faith.

You see, everyday I drove that car, I’d get looks.  I’d get pulled over in Granville, Ohio for no reason.  They told me that I had a turn signal out.  But when I got out and checked it with the cop sitting in his patrol car, the cop took off.  I never got so many stupid warnings from police as when I drove that car.  I don’t think the village of Granville liked me driving through their pretty little town in my old car very much.

The reason it strengthened my faith was this.  It didn’t matter the car I drove.  People could look, point, stare, laugh, mock, spit and pull me over for no reason, but everything worked.  There was no fault except that it was an old car that didn’t look pretty to them.  To me however, it was my freedom, the way I provided for my family, how I got to church and to school.

I think faith needs to be a bit like some old rusted out car that nobody seems to like.  Today, we are all about the new things, the emergent churches and getting a bunch of flashy media to entice people to the notion of God.  There is nothing wrong with reaching people in new ways, and trying new things, but we traded in our faith and sold our souls for some new model somewhere along the way.