Christian Living

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Of Mustangs and Neons
By Dan Blankenship
© 2006 Dan Blankenship


I have never really been a car freak. I see automobiles as a way to get from point-A to point-B, and not much else. I am not into expensive rims, fancy tachometers, or high performance exhaust systems. Give me an engine, four wheels, and a radio, I’ll be fine.

My home and my children’s education come before pretending the world is my Fast and Furious playground. That said, something dramatic happened in 2005. Ford introduced the new Mustang, and it was beautiful. Never before had I felt such an urge to buy a certain car. It was truly love at first sight. Have you seen it? It is sleek, eye-grabbing perfection gone extreme. There’s just no other way to describe the greatest car ever built. I had to have one!

Now the first thing I did was lookup the price on my newfound love. Sorry 1995 Neon, but your time is past, and why not reward myself with a high performance car that is somewhat affordable? Doesn’t God want the best for his people? I mean that’s why we believers get to go to Heaven, right? Talk about scrambling for justification; I had it bad.

Lucky for me, just about the time the Mustang bug got to me, I was beginning to understand the negative aspects of debt, credit, and bad money management. I don’t believe God wants his people to live beyond their means (see Proverbs 22:7 and Proverbs 28:20). Acquiring the new and amazing Mustang would require me to go into debt, something that was not in my best interest. But God did have our best interests in mind when He supplied us with a manual for healthy living – The Bible. I don’t believe all debt is bad, but unnecessary expenditures and arrears mired in vanity should be an obvious no-no to anyone who has balanced a checkbook.

I am more than happy to continue my point-A to point-B relationship with my 1995, slightly rusted and very loud Dodge Neon. When and if I ever get to own a new Mustang, it will be because God has blessed me with such ownership, not because of my own arrogance and indulgence. God supplied me with a dented up Neon, and that’s just fine with me.

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