Mismatched hubcaps

Every good story starts with "once upon a time," right? This one will be no exception.

Once upon a time, I was a snot-nosed high school kid with an old muscle car that ran better than any kid should understand. Much better, in fact. I was sporting a bored-out V8 that earned me a couple heavy-duty speeding tickets and a suspended license. At that point, being reckless was kind of my thing, and driving recklessly came along with that.

In this beautiful machine, there was one incident in particular that brings me to this blog post. That afternoon, I took a corner much faster than I should have and managed to lose a hubcap. No big deal really, except my smoking hot car now was incomplete. I did manage to come into a pair of hubcaps after this unfortunate incident, but I needed four, right? Not so much. Instead, I just matched the hubcaps on each side of the car. This way, no matter where you stood, things looked right. It looked so good in fact, one of my gear-head buddies noticed my "new" hubcaps and remarked on how sharp they looked.

There was only one problem: no matter how good the car looked, something wasn't right. The car still ran fine (oh boy, did it run fine!!), but cosmetically, there were some quirks. Most people never noticed the blemish, but I knew that it was there.

Life can be much like my old car. I know that I can make myself look good, like I've got it all together, but I may be hiding a dirty little secret behind my back, just out of your limited view. I have no qualms admitting to you that my hubcaps don't always match. For what it's worth, I've even been told I'm not firing on all eight cylinders.

The secret could be anything, from a hot temper to a secret addiction. Like most guys, I've spent my time as a slave to the cruel master of pornography. Without this admission, you'd never have guessed, right? That's the beauty of having it all together. Any jerk can make himself look like a saint. I should know.

Let's face facts: looking good isn't enough. You can fool me. Maybe you can fool your friends or your pastor. If you're really good, you could even fool your wife, but for what? At the end of the day, you know that things are askew, and even more so, God sees everything that is amiss.  No matter how good you are, you cannot hide from Him. So why try? You don't have to fight to look good anymore. Let God change you into someone who is good. He can give you a new nature, change your thoughts from wicked to wholesome and make you whole, just the way He intended you to be.

Ryan Saffer
Community Site Coordinator