you got a fast car

i really don't enjoy driving. right now i spend well over an hour everyday driving from home--to work--to other work--and back home. and if i have any other plans for the day i can pretty much pump my daily driving time to just shy of the 2 hour mark. what a horrific waste of time.

i don't usually drive too fast, you know, like unsafe fast, but sure, at times i let it get out of control. sometimes, i drive up to a stop light late at night, i stop, wait for a second, there are no cars coming in any direction, so i just drive through the red light. i know it's illegal, but it's completely safe. it just seems ridiculous to sit there, waiting for the stupid light to turn green for my proper turn to start driving, when there isn't any danger in me going right then.

in my 8 years of driving i've received some 6 or 7 tickets. most of them were legitimate, but a few not so much. i've also been in 3 collisions, twice i've rear-ended another car, and one time i tried to reverse out of my friends driveway and pull a 180 degree spin move as i came out onto the road. the 180 was more like a 90 and then another 90 in a perpendicular direction. it ended up with me and Tyler tank hatching it out of my poor overturned pick-up...that absolutely sucked ass. i still drove that pick-up for two years after that. i ended up duct-taping some racing numbers on that puppy, and she ran like a gem until the day i finally totaled it.

like i said though, these days i drive a way to much. i don't have a functioning cd player or fm radio in my car either, so for a long time i was listening to hours upon hours, week after week of talk radio. maybe a month ago i decided to turn it off and start driving in silence. so now i think a lot while i drive. i get all introspective and crap. the other day i had this thought about how driving relates to what i'm going through in life right now.

i pretty much always drive over the speed limit. we all do. most of the time it's just the standard 5-10 miles over, but every now and again i really push the boundaries. one time i got my nissan altima up to 127 mph. it was stupid, but i guess i was just curious how fast i could get going. the problem with always driving over the speed limit is that whenever a cop comes into view i get all paranoid and slow down for fear of getting a ticket, like somehow he managed to overlook how blazing fast i was just going. driving fast is hard on the car as well. on my last trip up from california Merle and i overheated the engine and blew the head gasket, and i still don't think this car is running normal again despite thousands of dollars worth of repairs. maybe i just need to slow down.

for years i've struggled with sexual sin. on some level, for nearly as long as i've been driving, i've allowed compromise in my sexual life. about a year ago i actually began doing something about it. i brought my secret life of sin out into the open with some people that i trust. through these relationships and through confession God has been faithful to give me a certain amount of victory. i sought grace, i sought forgiveness, i sought repentance, i sought healing.

there are costs to making bad choices when i drive. i've probably paid somewhere in $1500 range for all my traffic violations. my decisions to speed, or to not wear a safety belt, or to drive through a road construction detour all cost me in the pocket book. when i look at it from this end, of course i wish that i had just followed the rules and avoided the fines, but that's easy to say from this side.

i wish i could put a price tag on the losses i've incurred through my decisions to live a sexually sinful lifestyle. but these losses go far beyond money. i've lost time, i've lost vision, i've lost true passions, i've lost relationships.

of course there are costs to driving in a completely legal manner as well. proper vehicle maintenance and insurance for example. in fact the amount of money i've put into these two things far outweigh the amount of fines i've paid for my negligent driving. at first i thought this ironic, but as i realized that driving is a privilege, i understood that these financial 'losses' are actually a part of the responsibility that comes with that privilege.

the costs of me living a sexual pure lifestyle are sometimes overwhelming to me, but they are my responsibility. i take heart at the words of Christ in the sermon on the mount, if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. it is better for you to lose one part of you body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. there is no cost great enough to forsake righteousness. my pastor always says that giving your life to the Lord doesn't cost you anything, but it costs you everything. the forgiveness is completely paid for by God's gracious shedding of His own Son's blood, but in return for that grace we have to bring everything before Him and submit it all to His will. His will is many things, but above all, it is righteousness. i don't write these words without hesitation nor without self-conviction. these words are being birthed in me and in my life right now. the costs of righteousness is high, it's everything. it costs me time, it costs me self-pride, it costs me money, but it gains me a blessed hope.

sometimes i just wish i could sell my car and get a nice bike, or a pack horse, or a sherpa, or something like that to get me around. but of course that's not a realistic hope. the reality is that i'll continue pumping money into the transportation beast via insurance, gas, and the never ending maintenance bills. i also wish there was an easier way out of the toil i'm walking through, that i could just decide that i don't want to have a sexual nature, and i could go through life without ever having those thoughts, or desires, or struggles. yet again, i realize the vain hope which lies there. so i continue to fight this fight. i know i will overcome. i'm hopeful of how it might look on the other side, and i'm ready to pay any costs it takes to get there.