1986 Mazda 323 1.6i
(Not actual photo of the car, I do have one, but too lazy to dig it out)
I got this car with all my savings, $1500. When I got it, it was a 10 year old car with only 80,000km on it. It was a steal, and it was all I could ever ask for during high school. It drove us all to fellowship, camping trips (once I was able to fit two canoes on top of the car), my commuter car in university and IBM days, and even lasted through my first term in Ottawa through the middle of winter.
2000 Toyota Echo
Technically not my car. Mom sold my 323 to lease this one. Nothing much to say about it but it got me to Ottawa and back many many times. Blessings include the incident of Echo vs deer and escaping without harm - for both the car and the deer (I assume).
2000 Mazda Protege (323) SE Touring
Another blessing getting this car. $10,000, only 40k km. But the biggest blessings with this car is that it survived 2 near death experience, not including the crash that ended this car.
#1 Driving home on a blizzard night from Waterloo on the 401. Left lane completely covered in snow, going less than 80km/h in the middle lane, a 18 wheeler tries to fly by me on the right lane. I had to inch to the left to give him room and my left tire got caught in the snow and I did a 360 just beside the truck. Thank God I did not skid underneath the truck nor was there any other vehicular traffic on the 401 (no traffic on the 401, when does that ever happen?!?)
#2 Driving on the 404 to church coming back from Buffalo after a weekend retreat with Alice, Raymond, Alice and Genuine. After making a comment of how a car is in the ditch in front of us, I reduced speed to 80km/h. While on the leftmost lane, I hit a pitch of black ice. 360 across all four lanes of the 404. While spinning across the highway, I could see that there were cars in every lane of the 404. We ended up bouncing off a concrete barrier on the right and back into traffic, stopped facing the wrong way on the second lane. Miraculously, every vehicle on the highway was able to stop and avoided collision. After pulling onto the shoulder to assess the damage, there was not even a scratch on the car. Praise the Lord. This incident could have completely wiped out the leadership team of the English congregation.
But sadly, the little Protege did not survive the young teenage kid in the brand new (3 hours old) AMG Benz trying to make a left turn in front of me...
2006 Subaru Impreza 2.5i
After the accident in the Protege, it was time to shop for the new car. Another blessing was that the insurance payout from the accident was $7500, so that means the Protege only cost me $2500 over the 4 years. I was looking for a hatch to carry church equipment, my shortlist was Toyota Matrix, Honda Fit, VW Rabbit and Nissan Versa, and the Subaru Impreza
http://joeltang.blogspot.com/2006/11/car-shopping.html
http://joeltang.blogspot.com/2006/11/call-me-petter-solberg.html
The Impreza was initially out of my price range, but with the great lease rate it turns out to be the cheapest car to lease. Praise God.
Many memories and blessings with this car. http://joeltang.blogspot.com/2010/11/good-bye-subaru.html
2011 BMW 323i
No, still cannot wipe the smile off my face. Back to my familiar "323", on a whole different level. When the lease on the Impreza was coming up, Jenny and I was set to buy back the car. Then God blessed us with this opportunity on a 323i at 0.9%, $9000 off, 6 years warranty, it was in our budget.
I just cannot count all the blessings God had showered us with. But I keep reminding myself, a quote from Tim Keller, "If you take a good thing, and turn it into an ultimate thing, it becomes an idol." I kept telling myself that so these blessings will not become a stumbling block to my ministry and faith. And God has a great way to reassure me of this.
Yesterday morning while I was leaving Tyndale after some prep work, as I approach my car I noticed a huge dent on the left corner of the rear bumper. At first I was confused. I'm pretty sure I did not hit anything. And also I was sure the dent was not there in the morning when we left the house. But Jenny did drive the car to the library the night before. Though I was confuse, and there's a dent on the new car, I was relatively calm. When I got to the driver side door, I noticed a note on the windshield. It so happen that a good friend of mine at Tyndale backed into my car, but he does not know it was my car. At that moment, I felt so bad for him. He must have been terrified. I felt more for him than for the car. It was at that moment I knew God was testing and reminding me, not to let His blessing become idols in my life.
After work Jenny and I had a good discussion about it. She knew that I would be okay after seeing the damage on the car because I acted the same way when my MacBook off a chair at church. While everyone was freaking out, I was calm about it. Come to think about it, I was also okay when Rev Lau pointed out that there was dent in my Impreza. It is not that I don't care about my stuff, you can ask Jenny, I take good care of my things. But don't let your blessings become idols. Count your blessings, but don't make them your ultimate things. God is still the ultimate. Don't let your love for your blessings hinder your ministry or your faith. Your possession will rust, you will go through valleys in life, but the Lord's faithfulness is unchanging.
1 comment:
So very glad you learned this lesson before finding your car on Friday. Thanks for sharing this important lesson, and "glad" I could help to reinforce it. You are loved brother...
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