Our son, JJ, just recently turned 15.

Like many young people of his age, his mind is consumed with the very quickly approaching and seemingly unavoidable eventuality of operating a motor vehicle. Unlike many of his peers, however, JJ is not all that interested in the latest and greatest shiny new cars that are rolling onto local car lots.

As a matter of fact, JJ is rather unconcerned as to whether or not the car is even functional at this point. He has a dream of purchasing an old rundown car that we can then revitalize and make new again. JJ looks at cars with a very different set of eyes than most of us do. And to be completely honest, I struggle to see what he sees.

For the last several months, JJ has been scouring the internet, searching for the perfect car. What’s amazing to me is how many cars meet his qualifications and how optimistic he is about our collective ability to restore and even upgrade said cars.

My text thread with him is filled with listings of the cars he has discovered that he believes to be diamonds in the rough. As I read the descriptions and look at the images, all I can see are cars that are missing essential components, would require an incredible investment of time, effort and money and that are well beyond the skills and experience available to either of us.

Allow me to provide you with an example. On Sunday, JJ sent me a listing for a 1993 Ford Mustang. The description states, “Car turns over but doesn’t run. Needs a gas tank and fuel pump.” JJ says, “See, Dad. It’s an easy fix. No wonder the car doesn’t run. It needs a gas tank and a fuel pump and we’ll be good.”

But wait, there’s more. The listing also notes that the car has an automatic transmission, but JJ wants a manual transmission. So JJ says, “We can swap out the transmission easy, Dad. I’ve watched a bunch of YouTube videos and I think we could do it.”

He doesn’t stop there, though: “While we’re swapping out the transmission, we can take out the four-cylinder engine and replace it with a six-cylinder engine.”

In all of this, I fail to see where JJ is drawing his optimism from because I can’t see what he sees when he looks at the car. I see an incredibly oversized and ugly paperweight. He sees the car of his dreams rolling up and down Chestnut Street for Scoop the Loop or parked at a car show at Covered Bridge Bridge Health Campus.

What if we all looked at each other like my boy looks at cars? It’s so easy to get caught up in the apparent brokenness that sits on the surface, to begin compiling lists of all of the things that need to be repaired and replaced before a relationship will be of benefit and worth the work, to get lost in the personal cost of effort and energy and to move on to something shinier and more readily usable for our benefit.

In many instances, we naturally fixate on the negative and become overwhelmed by the brokenness before us. Perhaps that has as much to do with the reality of the brokenness within us as the brokenness in others.

In any event, at different times and in a variety of ways, we need to learn to see each other with a different set of eyes. We need to see each other as JJ sees old broken cars, which closely mirrors how Jesus sees us in light of the Gospel.

In Romans 5:8, it tells us, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While the Bible teaches that God can’t overlook our sin, it also teaches that God is able to see through our brokenness to the beauty of the person beneath.

Jesus knew full well the cost and the herculean effort it would take to bring about our restoration, and still, he came, lived and died to open up avenues for us to be made new. We need to see with these same eyes.

It’s the supernatural vision that Jesus noted in the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37. The Good Samaritan was able to look beyond the cost of reaching out a helping hand, beyond the energy and effort it would take on his part and beyond the potential hurt and heartache to see the humanity where others only saw hardship and loss. This is how God sees us and how we ought to see those around us.

I am both encouraged and intimidated by the optimism in how my son sees old cars. I am also challenged to attempt to see the mass of humanity around me in a like manner. I want to see beyond the brokenness to the beauty before me. Rather than a broken shell, I want to see the soul that lies within, made in the image of God, a vehicle created to showcase the goodness and grace of God.

It’s so easy to become jaded by the darkness and difficulty of our world and the people in it, but there’s so much more than meets the eye if we’re willing to look for it. Can you see it?