My tutoring by the Holy Spirit in the area of thinking long term became very practical for me. I was having a conversation with a gentleman I met, and we started to talk about cars. He commented about a certain vehicle that he had owned and what a good truck it was. He said he had bought it new and owned it until it had 120,000 miles driven on it. This was a new concept to me since I had never purchased a new car, but his next comment really got my attention. He said he had gone through two sets of tires in the life of the vehicle. I thought he was joking. “What do you mean two sets of tires?” I asked. He replied it had a good set of tires when he bought it from new that lasted for 60,000 miles and then he bought an expensive set of tires that lasted for the second 60,000 miles.

I was amazed. I started to think about what happened when I went to buy tires. I would walk into the tire store and scan the racks of tires until I found the least expensive ones, purchase them and leave thinking about what a bother it was to spend money and time buying tires. Unfortunately the reality was that the cheap tires would soon wear out and before I knew it, I was back in the tire store scanning the racks for the cheapest tires once again. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the spirit of poverty was affecting the way I bought tires. I was just thinking about saving a few dollars in the short term and not thinking about the long-term effect. We owned two vehicles, and between the two of them, I was spending a lot of time and energy at the tire store.

I contrasted my experience with this man’s experience. Somehow, what he was describing seemed like a better path to take. It seemed like a more prosperous path. I changed my method of tire purchasing and started to buy better tires that lasted longer. I spent a lot less of my time and energy shopping for tires and had more of both for important things…like my family.  The more expensive tires gave my cars a smoother ride and my family felt safer in bad weather. My new tire-buying strategies gave me a better quality of life. I found a better way, a more prosperous way to live.

There might be times when it is appropriate to buy inexpensive tires for a vehicle; however, in my personal life, this was one area where the Lord was specifically working to uproot a spirit of poverty in my life.