Entrusting riches

I just had a ride in a 1928 Model A Ford named "Lizzie." Don't hate me. We had the top down, and the sky was as blue as the day it was born.

I wore a long scarf loosely wrapped around my head and felt like Daisy in The Great Gatsby. I asked my friend Nan why her father had left the car to her and not one of her siblings, and she told me her brother got the '29 Packard, so I realized it was she who had been slighted.

There are a couple of barely noticeable gashes on the top of the front passenger door where my friend "helped" her dad restore it around 1948; he left them there in her honor.

If you have never seen the world from the inside of the lap of luxury, I can report to you that it looks pretty good. People smiled, for the most part. A couple pulled up alongside us at a stoplight and good-naturedly offered their pick-up truck in exchange-with the toolbox thrown in. An old man ran out of his shop, cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, "What year?" A young guy blocking the road with a UPS truck called out, "Love your car!" There was no sign of the "occupy this, and occupy that" spirit that insists that if everybody can't have a Model A, then no one should have a Model A.

I don't have a bucket list, but if I did, today's road thrill would have qualified. Nan and I laughed heartily and shrugged off nattering Enemy voices of accusation by remembering the verse:

"For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving" (1 Timothy 4:4).

Later in Timothy's letter, the Lord reminds us:

"As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share …" (6:17-18).

That describes Nan to a T. On impulse, we dragged my mom and dad out of their house and the ho-hum routine for a trip down memory lane and left them on the curb grinning ear to ear.

God knew what He was doing when He entrusted Nan with a little bit extra. Riches, like suffering, are a trust that not everyone can handle with grace.