I think that God uses the practical things in our lives to teach us spiritual lessons.  I remember distinctly the Holy Spirit prompting me to change the words I spoke about purchasing cars. Years ago while I was listening to a financial expert I heard a recommendation to never purchase a new car because of the loss of value that happens when you take the car off the sales lot. For example you might purchase a new car for $20,000 but as soon as you drive it off the sales lot it is now a “used” car and only worth $17,000. I adopted this view as my own and proudly stated many times that I would never purchase a new car because it was such a bad deal. Consequently, we always owned and drove used cars some of which had significant maintenance costs due to the amount of miles that were on the car.

I was driving in one of my used vehicles with a history of maintenance issues and I remembered the declaration I had spoken about never purchasing a new car. I sensed the Holy Spirit saying this to me, “What if I tell you to buy a new car?” I sat there in the drivers seat in shock. I was not convinced it was, in fact, the Lord speaking but I responded by saying, “Yes, I would” because I am in submission to his will for my life. Still, I was so convinced buying a new car was a bad deal that I didn’t think He would ever tell me to do it.

As it turned out, this was what God was saying to me. In fact, I felt like I should start to say different words to replace my previous ones. So I started to say, “I will buy a new car”, though only in private settings. I found that it was actually a little hard for me to get those words out of my mouth which underlined to me that I was probably on the right track. He was prompting me to replace my previous words, “I will never buy a new car,” with different words which would produce a different outcome in my life. As you might expect from reading these blogs within two years I purchased the first new car of my life. It was a little difficult for me to break thru this ceiling that I put on my life by my own words, but I did it. I drove that new car without maintenance problems for many years.

In using this example, I am not implying it is God’s will for everyone to buy a new car. Since that time I have purchased both new and used cars to meet the needs of our family.