Steve Playl — Viewpoint
Steve Playl | Viewpoint
Want to know what I miss about the older cars? What I miss is not missing from all cars, and especially not pick-up trucks, but I haven’t had a car with one of these in many years.
A few years ago we had a twenty-something year old Toyota Avalon that had over 300,000 miles on the odometer. When we thought it was on its last leg — ah, wheel — we drove it five hundred miles to Memphis, where our daughter, son-in-law and some of our precious grandchildren picked it up and drove it to Texas. They later drove it to West Virginia and used it there until they relinquished it and brought it back to Bristol. It sat in the back yard until we finally gave it away for the last time.
The Toyota had what I miss that’s missing, but it got broken many years ago. Anyway, it retracted when the ignition was turned off, so in reality it was only a half. Our 1994 Ford Ranger had one until I removed it because the radio didn’t work anyway.
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You’ve probably figured out by now that what I miss on most cars today is the radio antenna. The bump on the roof or wire in the windshield does not count. It has to be the kind that resembles a fishing rod, the kind that can be replaced by a coat hanger. The antenna I miss could be used to dry swimming trunks on the way home from the swimming hole.
Antennae were needed for our AM car radios, when I was a student at Madisonville High School. At night we listened to 50,000-watt stations from all over the country, stations like: WSM, Nashville; WLS, Chicago; WWL, New Orleans.
But back to the antenna; sometimes it helped me find my car in a crowded parking lot. That’s why I miss the radio antenna!
Remember that tennis ball or plastic smiley face on the antenna? Now we have to use an electronic “do-hickey” and make the horn blow and scare folks. Or we have to use some type of GPS device to find our vehicle. Modern technology is amazing.
The whole purpose of this spiel, however, is to point you to a greater meaning for “GPS” than “Global Positioning System.” GPS needs to stand for “GOD’S Positioning System.”
If we have to wander all over the parking lot, wondering where we parked our car, we may exercise our bodies and our patience — both of which may need exercise. But if we, ourselves, are lost or misplaced, we should remember there is Someone who always knows exactly where we are, all the time. He also knows, better than we, where we should be headed.
The Psalmist wrote: “I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go to heaven, you are there; if I go to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night — but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous — how well I know it.” (Psalm 139, NLT)
Don’t trust a tennis ball on an antenna; instead depend on God’s Present Spirit to guide you and be sure you are never lost.
Steve Playl would welcome your email at [email protected].
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