Shopping

Through the process of car shopping this last weekend, I realized there was something uncomfortably familiar about it: It's a lot like 'man shopping.' Like I said, this is going to be really uncomfortable. Bare with me here... I'm going to a 'Marriage Conference for Singles' type thing this weekend so I guess I am just preparing myself for it and it's on the brain. ::shrug::

When shopping for a car, it's all about all the details that we are looking for, what we want, what we don't want, what we are willing to compromise on, and what we are willing to pay for it. And then in the end, it becomes a game. We plan out what we can say to the sales man to get the price lower, he says what he can to make us think the price is better than it is, and then we walk away either with what we wanted because we played our game right, or we walk away empty handed with the hopes that the next day we will receive a phone call from the sales man when he has finally come to his senses and is willing to make a better offer.

What else does that sound like? The dumb dating game. Like a car, we investigate some things:

Year/Mileage - How much life experience has he had? Too much? Too little?
MPG - Is the effort we put into the relationship going to be matched?
Body/color - Is he attractive??
Engine type - What do they believe? What drives them? (You would think religion would be under 'details' but for those of us who are Christians, loving Jesus is not just a detail... it should influence the way the person functions in every way!)
Accessories - We have our negotiables and our non-negotiables. We would like those tinted windows and spinning rims (a neat eater with an amazing beard) but its not enough to get us to walk away. But if there are no power locks or A/C (heart for the poor and a good sense of humor), No Thanks! I'll keep looking!

Price - Then we get to the bottom line. How much of ourselves are we willing to give to this relationship? If the life experience is more than we want, shouldn't we be able to offer less of ourselves? If the beard was included, would we invest a bit more of ourselves?


A game. A game about what we can get for what we give.


And yet, we do the same to Jesus. It's all a game of give-and-take. We tell ourselves its not. We preach against 'prosperity gospel' til we are blue in the face... but we still do the same thing. When our car breaks down, we give Jesus less praise than deserved. When He gives us a new car, we lift our arms in gratitude... because He gave us what we wanted. We seem to think the commandment to praise Him no matter what (Philippians 4:4) is allowed to be tossed out the window when things get tough. We turn our relationship with Christ into just another shopping game, giving only what we think is deserved based on the wants that we get, instead of based on obedience and on what we have already received, which is worth so much more than a dumb car or a guy who can laugh.

Sigh...


Anyway, this was just a long-winded, rabbit-trail way of introducing my cute, practical, low mileage, good mpg, with all the bells and whistles new car! No name yet... any suggestions?