“Are we there yet?”
“The answer is still ‘no.’”
“How much longer?”
Are you imagining kids in the back seat on a road trip? The whine? The repetition? And your sigh as you fight back exasperation.
Let’s change the picture a little. Jesus is in the driver’s seat of your life, but you don’t like the route that He’s chosen. A certain tone creeps into your voice as you ask questions like these over and over.
“Why aren’t we there yet?”
“Hmmm?”
“I don’t like the desert. It’s hot, and dry, and boring!
“Try counting how many cactuses you can see in a minute.”
“All these curves are making me sick. I’m going to hurl!”
“You wouldn’t take a motion sickness pill a half hour ago, so you’ll just have to breathe slowly and relax. I’ll drive smoothly.”
“Why can’t we stop for ice cream?”
“I’ve already given you everything you need for this trip.”
“What do you mean, ‘the next rest stop is in 52 miles?’ I wanna get out of this car now!”
Life is a journey over roads with a myriad of names:
Rocky Trail | Winding Lane | Cliffside Narrows Pass | Pinnacle View Highway | Cactus Corridor | Deep Valley Way | Miracle High Road | Whine Drive | Sinners’ Causeway | Addiction Switchback | Temptation Bypass…
We focus on what we can see out of the window right now. We worry about the terrain we are going through. We concentrate on the difficulties of the stretch of road we’re on right now.
We forget who’s driving.
We forget our destination.
A pleasant road may take us off a cliff. A wide road with fast-moving traffic may stall us in Sin City. A lovely trail through a sunny meadow filled with flowers may dump us in a thorny bog.
Still, we name the roads we are on, we express how the roads make us feel, we judge the route we’ve been given, and we bemoan our fate.
Sing along with this song by Jim Reeves:
We need to remember the choice we made at a crossroads. Do you remember choosing to give up the driver’s seat and turning the steering wheel over to Jesus.
Remember where this road leads—to the end of life’s journey, to where we’re going, to our final destination.
Don’t get discouraged by the terrain, or be afraid of the storms, or feel impatient with the schedule.
God’s got us.
He doesn’t give us a detailed map or a precise timetable. The Holy Spirit GPS only tells us where we are right now and gives us an opportunity (and help) to keep going. But what really matters is that we know where we’re going.
Don’t get discouraged.
Keep pressing forward.
It’s the heavenly destination that matters most.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12-14, NIV
Jonathan Cahn’s book The Book of Mysteries has been my daily friend lately. Each day I read a short essay, pour over the Bible passages his devotional is based on, and journal a response of where I have been led by the Holy Spirit that day. These thoughts came out of this journaling.
Top picture: by Brian Erickson, on Pexels
Second picture: by Annie Spratt, on Unsplash
Kathleen S Evenhouse 