Ps. 32:8-9 – ‘I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you. Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, otherwise they will not come near to you.’ (NASB)
Over the last little while, I have uncomfortably been thinking about cars and driving. I say ‘uncomfortably’ because I know all to well the Idol factory that is our hearts, and how easily simple thoughts turn to desires, and desires turn to cravings, and cravings turn to obsessions; by the time you do a double-take, you realize that you’ve taken two steps too far and are caught up in the sin of coveting (and perhaps even envy).
My struggle with this isn’t the topic of this post, however. I say all that in part to expose myself for accountability to whoever is willing, but more importantly because it relates to the analogy I am going to (no doubt exhaustively) be using over the course of this post.
Have you ever been driving, certain of your route and destination, and had one of your passengers relentlessly trying to ‘direct’ you and ‘advise’ you on how to drive better? Or perhaps you have been the culprit; verbally reaching for the wheel in the driver’s seat. In either case, you have been involved in what is called ‘back-seat’ driving—when someone other than the driver seeks to assume control of the vehicle.
Road Trip
If time is a journey, then our lives are like vehicles making their way towards an eternal destination—whether it is eternal communion with God, or eternal separation from Him. Make no mistake; as assuredly as the Sun hasn’t ceased shining even though all we see are gloomy days and dark clouds, God is real whether you choose to believe it or not—and so is His justice which must be satisfied either by the Cross of Christ in your stead, or by your eternal judgment in hell.
With some notion of what is at stake then, isn’t it important to know who’s steering your life?
Ramped Up
Contrary to what your self-esteem might lead you to believe, the objective Word of God teaches us that right from the get-go, we are all out of alignment and with no sense of direction. The forces that be (both without and within us) make it impossible to go in the right direction. Our hearts are evil and deceitful to the point that we are unable to do what is truly good in God’s sight (Jer. 17:9); even if we could, we are ‘…held captive by him [the devil] to do his will’ (2 Tim. 2:26), and therefore we move in step ‘…according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.’ (Eph. 2:2)
An illustration of this point can be seen in a car loaded unto a towing truck with a dead battery and a busted engine; no matter how much you turn the steering wheel, the car does not really move in the direction it pleases, nor does it have the ability to go against the pull of the tow.
Upgrade
When the sinner comes to Christ Jesus in faith for forgiveness and salvation, he or she is miraculously transformed; justified by the work of the Cross, the old heart is replaced with a new one, and like a once ailing patient being nursed back to recovery, the Spirit of God and the Word of God work within to fix our alignment. No longer like those on the road with broken axles unable to move in a straight line, the believer is restored and empowered to make God-honoring choices.
The Christian is often ridiculed today for being a poor and miserable fellow stuck in the ‘dark ages’ and not illuminated by the strides of ‘science’, ‘philosophy’ and ‘logic’, but I put to you, dear reader, that if God can be taken at His word—and He can—then those who reject Him now are the ones to be pitied, for they will be truly miserable on the day He rejects them later. So if you don’t know the Savior, I would urge you to examine yourself earnestly and urgently, asking God to reveal Himself to you in a meaningful way, and to save you from a lost eternity!
Onward
Coming to Christ is an acknowledgement of your inability and desperate need for Him to intervene, yet how often do we try to ‘perfect in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit’? (Gal. 3:3) It is a matter where at the start of the journey we are fully aware of our weakness and lack, but as the journey progresses we either get misguided notions that the victories we gain are by our own ability, or we feel confident now that having gone a mile in the journey we can drive the rest of the way on our own. Writing to the believers in Galatia, Paul identified this idea in all its expressions for what it is: utter folly (Gal. 3:1).
Did you forget that it is precisely because you realized that you can’t do it on your own that you ran to Him in the first place? When we let pride or self-imposed desires cloud our vision, we stubbornly assert that we can see fine through the mist, even though He points out that we are about to veer off the path and into a ditch. The scary thing is that sometimes although God knows that our desires are contrary to our own good, we actually get what we want. Like a child that has been given free rein, in all excitement we turn the wheel haphazardly while making car noises; we enjoy a few moments of delight, followed by a crash, cuts and bruises (if only that), and usually a lot of tears.
Now, the absurd thing here is that at this juncture, we tend to actually blame God—why did He let it happen? Why didn’t He keep us from all the pain and heartache? We totally absolve ourselves of our own desires and actions, and blame the One who kept warning us! Do you see the utter folly in that?
The amazing thing I often find however (and the Bible teaches this, eg. Ps. 37:23-24), is that although God might let you in the driver’s seat as you so desired, He never truly abandons His children to their own devices. Like a friend added while discussing this analogy, ‘He is never too far to grab the wheel.’ His mercy upholds us and His patient faithfulness draws us to repentance from the wayward thoughts that make us doubt His wisdom or goodness.
The Application
He is your Parent, not your chauffeur. He is God and you are the servant, not the other way around. Establishing this relationship in your mind is vital for a lot of reasons; not only does it help to keep our tendency towards insubordination in check, but it also reminds us of the infinite chasm between God and us in terms of who is more suitable to be in the driver’s seat.
Dear reader, please consider the importance of this. Who would choose someone with a track record of serial failure over an eternal Victor who has been proven time and time and time, ad infinitum?
If anything you have read in this post has caused you to consider—even for a moment—that you lack an assurance of where your life journey will lead you at that fork in the road that is judgment, then please consider the words of the Lord Jesus Christ: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me’ (John 14:6), and ask God to lead you to Himself.
If you do know Him, then ask for the grace to trust His leading in your life, knowing that He is God, and that He will lead you in the best path for your life; things might seem slack or slow, but He is working all things out—for His glory and our good.
It is my hope and prayer that though my illustrations might have missed the mark, the points being conveyed haven’t. If nothing else, I hope you have been encouraged to trust in the Lord more.
Until next time…
