Keeping Up Appearances (Part 2)

 

I love fast sports cars! Seems peculiar for a 50 year-old lady, but inevitably when driving, I will turn my head to catch a glimpse of a nice-looking sports car. A highlight for me as a child was going with my Dad and two older brothers to the annual car show. Strangely, I remember making a beeline for the station wagons. Perhaps, that was the practical side of my personality coming out. In fact, the first car I owned in my 40’s was a station wagon when living in Zimbabwe! As I get older, I seem to be allowing my more daring side to come out, and for my 50^th Birthday my dream was to drive a sports car. Due to the time constraints of trying to finish my book for my Jubilee last September, I wasn’t able to organize renting one for my Birthday on the 25^th.

This dream wasn’t going to die. I went online and found a company offering a deal on driving a supercar on a racetrack in Cape Town. I went on Saturday. Now, I like the look of a sports car and I like to go fast, but when the instructor said these cars have such and such horsepower that meant nothing to me. I had seen a Lamborghini (the blue one in photo with Lucky) and a Ferrari (the red one) before, and I liked the appearance of them, so my choice was to drive one of those. They said the Ferrari was overheating so they weren’t sure if we could drive it. One of the Lamborghinis had already conked out and too many people were lining up for the second one. I looked around at the other cars. Although they didn’t catch my eye, because I didn’t want to wait for hours, I opted to drive an Audi R8 (the white one). I took Lucky, one of my sons, with me to watch as he loves sports cars and I had to ask him if the Audi was a good choice. He said it was. When I got into the car, I asked the instructor if it was manual or automatic and he replied, “It’s tronic.” Not wanting to appear like a dumb female, I didn’t ask him what he meant. All I could figure out was that the gears were on the steering wheel. Well, it seems I made one of the best choices, as everyone I asked who knew this car said it had one of the most powerful engines. I did go fast, not sure how fast, because I couldn’t take my eyes off the racetrack as it curved in so many places, but fast enough to have my head spinning when I got out of the car after 3 laps!

There is a point to sharing this experience. In many ways, society has trained us to look at people and things from a surface or appearance level. Mine might be in the area of cars; yours might be in the area of houses, or clothes, or the latest technology, or a girl or a guy. Although they may be appealing on the outside, we are often not taking into consideration what they are like on the inside. I wasn’t anticipating that a Ferrari would overheat or a Lamborghini would conk out! To me the Audi R8 didn’t look as appealing as the other two, but it was because I was focussing on the outer appearance and not on the engine or the heart of the car. Sound familiar? I Samuel 16:7b is where God says to Samuel, “For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” This was in reference to Samuel anointing one of the sons of Jesse to be king. Samuel assumed it was Eliab, and God cautioned him to not look at the outer appearance, but rather, at the heart. Seven sons passed by and none of these were God’s choice. The one God had chosen was David to whom He described as a man after His own heart. Although far from perfect, God knew David would ultimately seek His heart and obey Him.

That’s what God is looking for at the end of the day. A heart after His own - compelled and powered by love.