Job 11:19

You will lie down fearing no one,

   Multitudes will court your favor.

 

My cat is scratching the screen trying to get to the cursor or anything that moves on the screen. He has not done that much since he was a kitten. Something about our lives has him back on the desk watching. I cannot help but think he is trying to encourage me to give him more treats. Since I found out they have more carbohydrates than their normal food, I have scaled back how many treats I give them. If only we had a cat that was more dog-like. I like dogs and I enjoyed having them as a kid, but …

‘Lie down’ was also ‘stretch’ out and ‘couch’. ‘Fearing no one’ was also ‘and no one will make you afraid’ (which I liked), ‘with no one to make you afraid’, ‘undisturbed’, and ‘none make you trouble’.

‘Many’ was also ‘great’, but I think any link to great was in the numbers no the status. ‘Court’ was also ‘entreat’, ‘seek’, and ‘suit’.

I have fallen way behind in my goal to do a verse and a ‘blog’ every day. I have been busy with work, but I have also just been undisciplined. I have made myself an unrelated goal, but I think that goal requires discipline that will flow on through to everything else I do. I even got all my paperwork for one of my companies fully up to date. I am going to try and get the other one that day this weekend to, although I am not really sure I want to know how much money I have outstanding from two clients.

My daily driver came up with an airbag system fault this week. I have been a mess because I wanted to keep it as long as possible, but if the first step does not fix it, the second step feels like too much to put into a ten-year-old car. I have been torn with getting the twenty-seven-year-old car fixed as well. When we put my wife’s eleven-year-old car in the shop at the same time, I was overwhelmed with the desire to get a new car, but since I had no plan, I could not decide what to buy.

I have overcome the want, but have almost settled that we need a new large car that we can rely on with two old cars as backup. I hope the first fix works so we can kick the can (of the decision) down the road. (Note – it did not.) If only cars were an economic decision for me instead of the two emotional basket cases I now have. I read an article where a ‘coaching guru’ was having people analyze their childhood to determine what they base their decisions upon and decide if that is the way they want.

I still remember playing with toy cars and having a poster of racing cars when my mom and dad were still married, and I was little. My mom always wanted two cars she didn’t get, and my dad enjoyed a little car that I got to ride around in. I also had all the advertising and media to train me to like Porsches and other nice cars. So, in the end, I wanted a 911 and got one. I have told myself over and over (especially when it needs fixing) that I am going to keep it until I can’t drive it anymore. Oh and I also won a mirror of the Porsche logo on a scout trip that I still have hanging on the wall in the media room. So, I think I know why I make the decisions I make on it.

My mom also broke down and sorta got the Thunderbird she always wanted. It was an ugly 1980, so I don’t think it ever really satisfied her. But it did have a big V8 and was the first car I got to drive as a teenager. The speedometer only went to 85 because people in charge of things like that were idiots. But I got very accustomed to the pull of a very powerful engine, and have always wanted to get the larger engine when I had the option. This is why my daily driver has a 5.6 liter V8 in it. While that is the main reason I like it, it also seemingly has every technological feature possible in a 2013 car. Even 10 years later many cars cannot match that, or at least not at a reasonable cost.

Of course, the old car was $87,000 when new and the new car was almost that new. I paid about half for each, but to replace them with new versions of themselves in today’s market is well over $100,000, and that seems too much. With the used car market still skewed from the pandemic, it offers nothing in the range of a car I would spend. So, we pray the first fix works and the car market will correct before one of ours craters or the little one needs a car to learn in. (The second fix was not as much as projected and worked, so hopefully kicked this can way down the road.)

Not sure what this has to do with fear or respect, but at least I know why I am who I am as a car person. Now to work on the rest.

Tomorrow is Easter, but He is risen.

(Written 3/25/23, Posted 4/8, Job 250)