By Renee Ritchie, senior pastor, Way Church
Recently, I was stuck behind a beginner driver as I commuted to Wee Waa, which is my routine these days, at least four days a week.
The teenage driver was slow, but steady, and I certainly don’t consider myself the world’s best driver so I refrained from critiquing his skills behind the wheel.
For those who have been there (three times for your writer) this can all at once be an eerie/terrifying/proud moment, when your child puts their “L” plates on and climbs into the driver’s seat of the family car.
You get into the passenger seat and your teenager assumes control of your vehicle.
They are now in charge.
They may or may not respond to your advice and experience.
The young driver may think it is daunting to learn to drive … but the parent might find it equally daunting to not be in control!
I wonder how Father God feels about His children as we learn to navigate life, especially if we don’t listen to His instruction and scoff at reading the manual provided?
Sometimes in our frailty and flaws, we abscond from our responsibility.
We surrender the wheel of our life, to every whim of the crowd, our emotions and impulses.
We replace personal leadership with passivity.
In effect, we climb into the passenger seat when we really shouldn’t, or worse, become a back seat driver who is expert at telling others what to do, but terrible at managing our own lives.
Proverbs 25:28 tells us that “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.”
If this describes your situation, climb out of the passenger seat of your vehicle and get behind the wheel again!
Better still, make the Lord the co-driver of your life.
The Bible, my life-manual, contains a lot of teaching on self-control.
Ruling oneself, is actually impossible to master without help.
The truth is, that without the sacrifice of Christ, we would all be helpless to the effects of sin driving us.
Who is in the driver’s seat of your life?
What authority are you under?
To order photos from this page click here
