Trading Up

There are plenty of opportunities in life where we have to make a trade. The hope is always that we end up with the good end of the deal. Not too long ago I bought a new car. In fact, while I have owned six cars in my life, none of them until the car I now own have been new. I am now on my seventh car and this car is new.

I remember the day I showed up at the dealership to buy the car. I had visited once before and sort of knew the car I was going for. Having had the car I was driving for years, I was completely aware of what I wanted from a car mostly because of what I was not getting out of my current vehicle. The bottom line was that while my current car was old, it was the car I owned and I was ready to part with it to trade up. No doubt people do not typically trade down, right? Sometimes, however, you do see this, but that was definitely not the case when it came to me.

This is life, I am convinced. We have some equity in the situation we find ourselves in, and surely we do not want to start from scratch in life. We want to trade up. But not unlike my car, it was far harder to bite the bullet and suddenly go into a little debt to trade up. I owned my car. The seat conformed to me! I knew exactly what was wrong with the car and likely when it would break down next! “Do I really want to trade at all?”, was the question. But it really isn't the right question. The real question is, “Can I get away with trading up?” Sometimes you have to get so tired of your situation that you are ready to go into a little debt to suddenly find yourself in a whole better situation. But it is sometimes difficult to break the momentum of what is known, to embrace what is not known.

Let me tell you about the best deal on the planet. I kid you not, even with the current financial situation that we all find ourselves in, you aren't going to want to pass up this deal. The debt is far less valuable than the deal you get in the end. Here is that deal:

Jeremiah 31:13

The young women will rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old, together, for I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and give them joy for their sorrows.

Mostly people who don't spend much time with the Bible would likely be fairly well surprised to find that the Bible is filled with these sort of statements. This is God basically saying to people that they will be so excited about the joy that comes into their lives as a result of trading in their sorrows that the natural response will be to start dancing simply because they are happy. Not dancing to perform. Not a broadway show dancing, but more like a flock of 13 year old girls all giggly and jumping up and down when they get together and having not done so in at least a few hours. God is basically saying he will make us excited like 13 year old girls! Secure in my masculinity, I can say with all honesty, that is a good thing. That is pretty darned happy!

Here is the thing though: Like nearly all of the other statements like this in the Bible, God is really going for a trade. It isn't enough to want the joy. He wants your sorrow. Isn't that crazy? There is only one way to give up your sorrow. You have to trade it in. Sorrow is like a gas-guzzling car. The more you drive it, the more fuel it demands. The more fuel you invest in it, the harder it is to give up that investment and trade in. We invite the creator of our sorrow (ourselves or some friend or enemy) to ride along in our sorrow, but this is never good. They don't respect the investment we've made in this ride and their riding along only makes things more costly to us. The bottom line is that we have to unload this sorrow and the only way is to trade it in!

So how do you trade in your sorrow? Well, if you've recently traded in a car (in the last ten years) and were paying attention, the trade goes something like this. You and the dealer walk around the car and as well look inside. Your car is painfully on display. As the dealer walks around it, they point out blemishes and dents, scratches and missing parts. They sit in the seats and start fiddling with things that you fear will fall out or off or apart. The dealer does this for a reason. They want you to see everything that diminishes the value of the vehicle. After this fiasco, the deal begins. The offer is extended.

God isn't quite like this. Well, God is, but not for the same reasons. It ends up that God cares more about you than the car, in the end. At each blemish or dent, scratch or missing part, God knows there is a story. As the dealer, God stops and asks, “Tell me about this dent here?” God won't accept the short version of the story. If you are going to get the deal, then you have to revisit the whole ugly story with God. But rather than diminishing you, God says “That was a horrible wreck. I am so sorry you went through that. Now, tell me about this dent over here?”

You talk your way through each dent, each scratch, every missing part is inventoried and each story is listened to patiently. This is the deal. God wants to know and expose each piece of invested equity. God wants to know who hit you and who you hit.

At the end of the examination, God first tells you what you already know. The car is nearly totaled; God thinks it is a miracle that you are still on the road! But the thing is, God knows this financier and you are about to get the deal of the century. As you could have imagined, Jesus is the financier. He is standing there with a check made out in the amount of the new car. You don't have to pay a thing! Jesus is fully prepared to foot the bill. But there is a debt that you still endure as the result of this amazing deal. You have to let Jesus show you how to drive this new car. He will show you it's power, it's handling, every feature and how they work. He will ride along and show you not only how to make a safe left turn, but just when to make it. And soon, you will be driving it and he is like OnStar! Easier than hitting a button on the dash, you can get directions, help when you can't find the keys from time to time, as well as the fuel when yours runs out.

So here is the next challenge: If you are not used to making the trade, the first one is always the biggest one. And the older your car, the harder it is. Don't worry. From one traveler to another, it is totally worth it. Here is what you do:

The thing about the human heart is that unless you've made the trade, then you are carrying around plenty of old and new sorrow. The act of trading it in results in joy. So pick one sorrow and start to walk around the situation with God.

If you are anything like me, then many of my dents (not all of them) are the result of my poor driving. So after I walk around the situation, I have to get humble and end up saying, “I am a pretty crappy driver. Sorry about that. I want to be a better driver. I don't want to keep driving a car that is all dented up. It sucks.” And each and every time in response to your humility God says, “Well, yeah, you can be a pretty crappy driver. And in this situation, this dent was pretty much your fault / the fault of your poor driving. But I totally care about your driving and your ride and I want to see you become a great driver, for your sake and for the sake of others! So, I forgive you for your crazy impatient nutty driving. Let's take a drive together and I will show you how to handle this situation in the future. I can make you a pretty darned good driver and that will get pretty fun for you, you know? So let's do this deal. Give me this sorrow, and I will give you some joy in trade.”

And... BAM... you are into a new car, just like that. And dude... what a deal! I promise you that you will want to take the time to do more trading with God. And after all is said and done, you will have a garage filled with gladness. But just promise yourself to remember that each time you find that your garage contains a sad old rust-bucket, that you will go make the trade. Don't lie to yourself and say that the “character” of that old-piece-of-crap makes you who you are, or that you can't imagine parting with it after so many years (clinging to some old sorrow.) That is not who you are!... It is only holding you back!... You have to let it go and trade it in!...Why in the world would you keep driving around in that crazy old gas-hog at this point!? Right?

Disclaimer: God is not a car dealer. I acknowledge that sometimes the reputation of car dealers as a stereotype doesn't evoke good feelings. Sometimes when we think of car dealer we think of a sneaky, shifty guy in a leisure suite swindling and being swindled. The fact of the matter is that God will not swindle you, nor can you swindle God. The equity in the deal is your real sorrows... you can't fake humility or repentance if you contributed to your own sorrows. You have to be real... but it is worth it. The trade is totally inequitable IN YOUR FAVOR!