#DonkeyLife

Their voices carried excitement while I carried a bit of apprehension.  It’s not every day that little boys get to stand next to vehicles that carry 7-figure price tags.  And yet here we were, walking around really expensive cars with prestigious emblems that bore the image of raging bulls and prancing horses.  We were in the midst of supercar heaven and while our boys’ voices squealed with excitement as they recognized their favorite, high-horsepower machines I made sure that we didn’t touch or mark the “lambogeenies” or “ferrarrreeys”. 

This is life at a “Cars and Coffee” event with young boys.  Cars and Coffee is a new twist on the common car show.  The recipe is pretty simple; invite people with amazing cars to bring them out and park them in an open lot on a weekend morning.  Tell the masses with an interest in cars to come out, drink coffee, and check out all of the shiny bits parked in the lot.  There’s usually a wide variety of cars with proud owners nearby ready to chat about their rides.  It’s a good way to kill a few hours when you are car enthusiasts.

Our boys were barely attending school before we ended up at a Cars and Coffee that featured “supercars”. These were vehicles on another level; Sure, you could call them transportation, but the amount of engineering and proliferation of carbon fiber made them stand out from anything else on the road.  They were designed to attack a track or quadruple speed limits.  And they made our boys, and me, marvel at being so close to such excess, engineering, and expense!  It was awesome.  All of the cars there were big bucks, very low mileage, and lived a life of cleanliness and perfect maintenance.  

We rolled up to the show in our minivan, which wasn’t terribly bad looking but it was more of a cargo hauler than a showpiece.  We didn’t have a badge with an exotic, majestic animal on the door.   We weren’t the only ones of course.  There were lots of cars stuffed within parking lots without prestigious names or fancy badges. All of these cars were daily drivers.  Cargo haulers.  The family trucksters.  A donkey would be viable option for a hood badge for these vehicles.  They do their thing day in and day out without appearances that demand attention.  They are practical and common and live a life of transportation that’s slow and steady compared to the supercars that rolled out for a monthly Cars and Coffee.  I can appreciate the supercars with prancing horses for what they are, but I find myself driving a vehicle that’s more like a donkey.  And that’s ok!

Jesus found himself using donkeys as well.  A donkey carried his mother to His birthplace.  Later on, when He knew that his death and resurrection were upon Him, he sent his disciples to fetch a donkey.  This donkey would carry Jesus to Jerusalem where throngs of people would worship Him; only to later turn their backs and demand His death.  People at that time probably wanted their Savior to have more prestige and swagger than riding a donkey.  They wanted the Cars and Coffee Christ to have a prancing horse or raging bull for transportation.  But that’s not how Jesus rolled, er, trotted. 

The donkey delivered Jesus.  The Son of God could have used any animal and yet chose a lowly, common donkey to carry Him to the people.  Jesus came to bring Hope and take away the sin of the world…and a donkey was the chosen deliverer!  Jesus believes in #donkeylife.

We might want to consider how we carry the message Jesus gave us.

Whether you are decades old Christian, a recent born-again Believer, or someone that’s still wavering in what you believe it’s time to align our emblem and mode of transportation with Jesus.  It’s easy to slip into seeing ourselves as that prancing pony or raging bull and just pull out our beliefs and actions-filled-in love once a week or once a month when it makes us look good.  But those aren’t the animals Jesus chose to bring His first appearance on earth.  It was a donkey.  Jesus didn’t want the biggest, baddest, fastest animal of the day.  He wanted the one that could carry his message.

It’s a really good time to be a donkey.  Jesus has a need for donkeys to be available and carry Him to others.   We don’t have to be a prancing horse or raging bull.   We shouldn’t pretend to be an expensive supercar tucked in a garage that comes out once in a while and exclusively on the nice days.  We don’t have to be perfect and flawless in front of a crowd.  We are called to be real and available; just like the donkeys Jesus chose to cart Him around 2000 years ago.  

Donkeys are the perfect creatures to carry a message of a life freed from sin and shame.  Donkeys literally have a cross on their back; it’s as if God wanted that particular animal to carry the good news.    The message of salvation is on them as long as they keep “donkey-ing”.   The world will say you need to a have that raging bull or prancing horse as your sign of importance, but history shows another story; You can be a simple donkey and make quite the difference!