Shadows of a 1965 Chevelle...

Last night my wife and I were watching a couple of episodes from the late 1970’s TV show “CHiPs.”  In one episode the CHP officers responded to a multiple car pileup on one of LA’s many freeways (as was a regular occurrence on the show!).  As the camera swept over the sea of smashed and overturned cars, I caught a glimpse of a 1965 Chevy Chevelle 300 Deluxe sedan.  I immediately pointed it out to my wife and exclaimed “there’s a car like my folks had when we were dating… do you remember it?”

In the mid-sixties my folks had purchased a brand new 1965 Chevelle 300 Deluxe station wagon.  I think it was the very first new car that they had ever bought!  My Dad was extremely fond and attached to that car.  I can humorously recall the first summer after purchasing the car when my Dad had gone to Pennsylvania for a special multi-week seminar concerning one of the subjects he taught at the Junior High School where he worked.  When the day of his return home came, my Mom wanted to make sure that the new car was clean and shiny for him.  So she got all of us kids involved, pulled the car into the driveway and began to spray it down with the hose.  The only problem was that she had forgotten to roll up the rear window until it was too late and she had sprayed water into the car!

She was quite frantic, but we quickly jumped inside with our towels and dried it the best we could.  When we picked up my Dad later in the day, we all greeted him with big (sheepish) smiles and never mentioned a thing!  To this day, I do not know if my Mom ever told him about the incident.  When my folks later traded in the car for a new Camry in the 1980’s, my Mom related to us kids how my Dad drove away from the dealership with tears in his eyes!

When Piper and I were dating, especially in Junior College, we spend a lot of time in that car.  I drove it to school every day, took it on our dates and spent many hours talking (and maybe a little smoothing… okay… maybe more than a little…) in the parking area near her parent’s house on the hill where they still live.  I mentioned all of that to Piper as we sat on the couch and it brought back a flood of memories.  Those memories were sweet and sad at the same time as I recalled her spontaneity, quick wit and “get up and go”… a far cry from the effects of the Alzheimer’s that we are dealing with today.

After talking about it for a while I distinctly heard a voice inside saying to me that “we cannot go back… but we can go forward from where we are today!”  At that point I also thought of the verse in James 1:17 that declares, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shifting of shadows.” (KJV)  That truth brought a sense of peace and great comfort with it for the God who healed His people in the Old Testament and in the New through His Son Jesus is not shifting or varying away from who He is and what He does!

Suddenly the force of all those healing promises that we ply into Piper day and night came to mind and any self-pity or desires to return to the past disappeared!  Why go back to what was - when the best is yet to come?  In John 17:17 Jesus asked the Father to “Sanctify them through Your truth.  Your word is truth.” (MKJV)  Thayer’s tells us that the word “sanctify” actually means “to separate from profane things and dedicate to God.”  So it seems that Jesus was asking Papa God to separate the believers from those things, that according to Dictionary.com’s definition of “profane”, are “characterized by irreverence or contempt for God or sacred principles or things.” 

In other words, Jesus was asking that we be set apart from anything that has contempt and/or disagrees with His Word.  According to my bible, healing is part of God’s plan for His family and sickness and disease stand in contempt of that truth.  Therefore Piper is set apart from any lasting hold of this disease that has attacked her body!  Psalm 91:1 informs every believer that “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the SHADOW of the Almighty.” (KJV)  And according to James 1:17, that SHADOW never shifts and never varies!  Now that’s the kind of shadow that you can depend on to always be there, whenever you need Him! 

So my wife and I can enjoy the memories of that old 1965 Chevrolet Chevelle 300 Deluxe and the many adventures we shared in it, but they but pale in the light of God’s future plans as promised to us through the truth of the unshifting, non-varying shadow of His Word for you and me! 

Therefore… get out of the heat of the day and step under the cool shadow of His Word and enjoy His truth!  Have a great day.  Stay in tune to His Word, and keep asking yourself… “What or Who’s SHADOW am I expecting to stand under today?”