Benjamin Clymer is a company founder and CEO. He loves things that are handmade for specific clients. You can tell because he drives a car built specifically for him.
His “new” car is a 1959 Porsche 356 Zagato Coupe. Porsche had the plans since the late 1950s but had never built the car. They spent three years creating his unique vehicle: they used a 1959 Porsche 356 engine, transmission, and chassis, but they crafted the body by hand and then fitted the car to Benjamin’s taste.
As a result, he has a new car that was built from 1959 plans and parts.
The Wall Street Journal article caught my eye because, like Benjamin Clymer, I have a fascination with vintage cars. I have never spent what I presume he spent for his Porsche, but I have appreciated classic cars just the same.
Over the years, I owned a 1967 Mercury Cougar, 1966 Ford Mustang Coupe, and 1965 Ford Mustang Fastback. When we moved to Atlanta in 1994, our sons were of such an age and driving in that city was of such a nature that my Mustang Fastback was no longer appropriate.
I have driven age-and-lifestyle-appropriate cars ever since, but I still miss my Fastback. I watch car auctions on television when I get the chance and imagine myself driving what these collectors collect.
Innovation and your enduring value
There’s a theological point to my automotive reminiscing: Like Benjamin Clymer’s new old car, you and I were built from designs that predated us. Not by sixty years, but by the entirety of human history to the point of our conception.
Also like his Porsche, you and I are unique. There is no one else in the world precisely like you. God did not create you because the world needed another person to add to the billions of us on this tiny planet. He made you because he wanted someone precisely like you.
This is a fact worth remembering in a secularized culture that tries to force us into its mold of conventional wisdom and popular morality. When we stand for biblical truth on nearly any subject these days, we find ourselves in the minority. And we often find our beliefs ridiculed, caricatured, and worse.
The next time you find your biblical beliefs to be unpopular, remember God’s word: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). To be “conformed” is to be “made like.” Refuse the world’s mold by being “transformed” in your mind through Scripture, prayer, worship, and communion with your Lord. Reaffirm your uniqueness in God’s creative grace.
Then extend that grace to those you meet, remembering that they were created in God’s image as uniquely as you were. Remember that Jesus died for them just as he died for you. Choose to serve them by speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) just as someone spoke the truth in love to you.
And know that when every Porsche on the planet is forgotten, your obedience will bear fruit for eternity.
How will you serve your Lord and your neighbor out of your uniqueness today?
Search
