He alone is worthy

I recall the day back in the 1960’s when my classic Mini Cooper S racing sedan taught me a lesson about faith.  We unloaded and prepped the car for a local racing event at Mel Larsen’s track north of Phoenix, Arizona.  (Note: That road racing track is apparently now long gone and buried beneath the Speedworld Dragstrip which was formerly Phoenix Dragway.)

Only a few days earlier, someone had broken into the garage and stolen the tiny eight-spoke magnesium wheels right off our car. We weren’t sure we would make the race, but we quickly scrambled and called the distributor only to learn that the new hot setup was larger diameter Minilite mag wheels with low profile tires. We would have one of the first sets of these in the US and they had just been made legal for use in our sedan class. The tires and wheels had arrived just in time for the race weekend.  

On the first practice session, I took the car out and accelerated down the long straightaway.  Being unfamiliar with the feel of the new tires I thought I would back off a bit and get the feel of things before starting to test their limits in the corners. This turned out to be a very good decision.  I braked for the first corner early, grabbed a lower gear and turned the car towards the apex of the turn as I had done many times before.  Then the car did something it had never done before.  As I turned into the corner, it initially started sliding and then instantly jumped up onto two wheels like something in movie stunt.

Looking out at the Arizona desert at a 45-degree angle was a unique experience.  I corrected with opposite steering input and after what was probably a fraction of a second but seemed like forever, the car responded and returned its airborne tires to the ground.  I regained control and returned to the pits and my pit crew asked me where I’d been.  I explained that I had been out for a nice drive through the cactus on two wheels.  I asked my friend Mike (who also raced a Mini and also had a racing license) to very carefully try the car and see if he could figure out what was wrong.  He came back to the pits and his face was bleached white with fear.  No, it was not just my imagination, something was very, very wrong!

Days before I had received these new tires and they were wider, lower profile and looked good.  With about 30% bigger contact patch they had all the appearances of vastly improving the handling of the car.  I had paid a fair amount of money for them and had faith in them.  I was going to drive them down the racetrack at speeds over 100MPH and expected that they would turn into a corner successfully. The only problem was that the object of my faith was flawed.

After some research I found out the front and rear negative camber settings that I had previously used on my car were incorrect for these new tires.  The published fitting notes (with appropriate cautions) had inadvertently been left out when the wheels and tires were shipped to me. This mistake in the camber could cause the car to unpredictably and violently shift its weight onto the outside tires as it leaned over in a corner.

Some say that it does not matter what you believe in, but that just having faith alone is enough. But as I learned, the faith we have is only as good as the object we put our faith in.  If that object is flawed, then our faith is in vain.

Faith must be focused on a worthy object.  My great faith in those tires and my old suspension settings did not make up the difference for the flawed object.  No amount of faith on my part, no amount of resolve, courage, or ability would have made them work.  I had risked my life based on incorrect information – on a bad assumption.  The object of my faith, that car with its flawed settings, was not worthy of my faith.  I think of all the flawed objects I have put my faith in like money, power, or prestige and I realize how these things are not worthy.

In the book of Revelation, Jesus is called “Worthy” at least 6 times. In Jesus, we have the only truly worthy object for our faith and even faith as tiny as the miniscule mustard seed can unleash God’s mighty power in our lives.      

 ^{MT 17:20} He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, `Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

Richard Lewis
Pathway Christian Church
Riverside, CA