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Not Your Father's Oldsmobile

by Jerry Ousley  
7/21/2007 / Christian Living

Can you remember your first car? I certainly can. It was a 1965 F85 Oldsmobile. This car was a V-6 three-on-the-tree lemon from the get-go. Later on in life I found out that the main problem on the car (if I understand it correctly) was a compression leak. I don't really know a lot about cars but I do know this about my Oldsmobile It took its time getting up speed. I mean I was lucky if I could spin gravel in a parking lot. There was absolutely no way I could leave rubber marks on pavement! It just didn't have the "Oomph" for that.

When I was in Bible College I worked at a nursing home part time. It was on the other side of town and you had to climb a large hill from a dead stop to get there. I don't know how many times I would start up in third gear, down-shift to second, and if I didn't make it to the top in second, because it wasn't synchronized, I had to stop, make sure no traffic was coming, and roll down to the bottom. I then would come to a complete stop and go up again, this time in first gear all the way. It was embarrassing.

We all have our little stories to tell from our youth but I remember a time when we went to Church in Seymour. I had driven my car and two of my friends had also driven. One of them had a Volkswagen Beetle, and the other a Pontiac GTO. We were driving home and decided to take the Interstate. My cousin was riding with me in the ol' Olds and after getting up on the Interstate, naturally both of the other vehicles passed me like I was sitting still (or maybe going in reverse).

My cousin shouted "come on Jerry, pass them! Don't let them get away with that!" But, alas they left me like I was sitting still. But all hope was not gone. I told my cousin "They'll get down the road and forget about us then we'll give them a little surprise!" So I pushed the gas peddle to the floor and just let that little V-6 take its time getting up speed. I knew I was going around 85 miles per hour because the odometer needle bounced back and forth in a 40-mile range. Somewhere in the middle was about how fast you were going.

Just as I had predicted, we caught them a few miles down the road. Because they had forgotten about us, with ease we slid by the both of them! My cousin jeered and taunted them as we passed. Yeah, I know it was dangerous, and I sure wouldn't attempt anything like that now and I'd ground my daughter for life if I ever heard of her pulling a stunt like that!

This story reminds me of how life can do the same thing to us. We pass up our problems like they're sitting still without another thought. It seems we've got the problem licked, when out of the blue they come speeding by us again. It makes us wonder just how we can get the victory over things.

There is a way. It is only through Jesus Christ, of course. The devil is going to keep flinging things at us and remind us every once in awhile about them. He'll even tempt us longingly from time to time, even after we've seemingly won out years before. But we must keep depending on Christ. When that temptation arises and is flashed before us we've got to immediately cry out to Him for help. We get into problems when we try to beat the situation ourselves. We think that surely after all this time in the Lord we can handle this little old thing. But we are wrong. Our strength is never in ourselves but always in Christ.

So the next time that problem comes up like an ol' Olds, don't forget to depend on the Lord. He'll make it seem like you don't even recognize that old thing. "REMEMBER THE OLDS!"

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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