Jesus take the wheel

Image from: lost sheep - Bing images

Ah, learning to drive. Do you remember it? Stressful, exciting, nerve-wracking, and an absolute sign of growing up and becoming an adult. When you get your temps, Mom or Dad has to be with you, ensuring that you are driving safely and to help you learn the ins and outs of how to work the machine that you now are in control over. At least in Ohio, you need to go to driver's education classes, have scheduled drive times with a professional, take a test to get your temps, take another test to get your license, and drive a specific number of hours with your parents in different road conditions. All of this to get your driver's license. At the time, it seems like a lot of effort to get to this step, but really, we need to know how to abide by the rules and keep ourselves and others safe.

Considering getting our driver's license was such a mile marker in our lives, it really does make sense that it symbolizes one of the first big steps of becoming an adult. We have responsibilities and dangers to handle. We have adverse road conditions and weather, we have noise and speed, and as a driver, we are responsible to handle all of it. It is a bit like life, isn't it? We look at our lives and consider that we are driving the whole thing, that we have to face all the ups and downs, blind curves and slippery ice, and all the other dangers with a level head in order to stay safe, to stay in control of our journey, and in order to keep ourselves on track and not crash. Honestly it is more than a little intimidating when we consider all we are supposed to know, remember, be prepared for, and more. In our lives, we need to navigate emotions, jobs, relationships, both turbulent and steady, education, difficult life decisions, and so much more. Often when we wake up each day, we do our best to take it all in stride, keep our stress levels low, and focus on getting to the next step. And while this sounds quite noble, it is no small task. How easy it is to find ourselves tense and exhausted, overwhelmed and desperate, feeling lost and at the end of our rope. Just like driving, it can come out of nowhere and we find ourselves speeding, in a patch of ice, on the side of the road in a ditch, lost in the middle of nowhere, or spinning out of control.

Of course, this happens in life, of course we are going to go through difficult times and have downs in between our ups. One big question surrounding it is why does it happen? Why do we have to go through these times, even though we all know we are going to have them? Well, mostly because we are sinners, filled in a world with sin, and we have challenging and human experiences to endure. However, sometimes we can find ourselves out of control because we have been grabbing at the steering wheel and forgetting who is actually in charge. I find that we just can't help ourselves. We are always grabbing at the wheel, always looking to be in control, looking to have power over our lives. I caught myself this week. I am not sure how many weeks have gone by that I have been trying to grab at the wheel, but I have truly been white knuckling it. I have been not only been focusing so intensely on things that are inherently out of my control, but I have abandoned the things that make me happy, that bring me closer to God, and that make me a better child of His. I have been spending all of my time doing it on my own, thinking that I can handle it, I can make it work, and I don't need any help. I was wrong. I hit my limit yesterday. I mean I really hit my limit. What I was really doing was over-thinking, over-stressing, and working myself into a tizzy about things that I should have left at the cross and trusted that Jesus would handle. My shoulders ached from the tension that had wound throughout my muscles, my head hurt from the constant attempts to manage everything and add more, and I was near tears trying to talk myself out of the poor mood that I was in. I felt like I was failing at everything. Proverbs 3:5-7 tells us to "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil." I had missed the mark. I realized yesterday that I had been grabbing at the wheel. I had been trying to take charge, trying to leave Jesus out, and trying to handle it myself. I was not trusting in God enough to keep myself from trying to do His job. I failed to submit to Him, and I was relying on my own understanding.

I mentioned earlier that we can compare getting our driver's license to growing up and what it means to become an adult. We might consider ourselves in charge of the wheel of life, but when we really take a look, we can see that we are simply passengers, with very little control over what happens to us in life. Yes, we do have to make difficult decisions, choose what paths we want to take in life, and more, but recognizing that Jesus is behind the wheel and that He has already planned every step of our journey is important in being able to manage the ups and downs of life. We get into trouble when we try to take control. When we try to take the wheel, tell Jesus to ride shotgun, and give it a go, we can't help but find ourselves off of the path we were supposed to be on. Flat out, we get lost. Just like I was yesterday. I am following Jesus back to the right path, where I can relax, find peace, and leave my insecurities, troubles, and second-guessing at the cross. I am sure I am not the only one. Too often, we find ourselves struggling to get back to where we were, without any road signs and without any help. In Matthew 18:12-13, we learn that "If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off." When we try to take control over our lives, we wreck, we wander, and we lose our way. In this way, we can see how we are the lost sheep. We get lost when we take our eyes of Jesus, take our focus off of His guidance, and try to convince ourselves that we can really manage life behind the wheel.

I think we can really relate to the lost sheep here. Feeling lost is a natural human reaction in life. We honestly are figuring it out as we go and have to make mistakes along the way in order to learn from them. Feeling lost and being lost, however, can be a scary realization. We can be going along, thinking we are on the right path and then all of a sudden it hits us, and we realize we have no idea where we are, the magic of hope has disappeared, and everything around us no longer feels familiar or appealing. Then what? Do we keep going or do we stay where we are? Who do we ask for help? Getting lost, either in the grand scheme of life or in the actual sense of getting physically lost, is no joke. And yet we all do it. This is why the parable of the lost sheep is so important. Jesus knows we wander off. He knows that we are surrounded by temptations, by loud voices that can crowd out God's calm whisper, and He gave us the power of free will to be able to either choose to stay by His side or to leave Him. Sometimes we leave Him without really choosing it. We wander away, so caught up in everything we are doing, so caught up in trying to grab the wheel and take control of where we are going, that we are lost before we even know what we are doing.

Jesus also tells the parable of the lost sheep to the teachers and Pharisees in Luke 15:1-7, when He states "'Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.'" What I love about the Matthew Bible verse and the way Jesus tells the parable in Luke is that it is an absolute fact that the one in charge of all the sheep will go out and look for the lost one. There is no doubt that the one lost sheep is worth looking for. In the same way, Jesus will undoubtedly come and look for His beloved children. Jesus will try to find us, try to bring us back. He will call our names and worry about us, even when we are too soaked in our own earthly concerns to consider Him. Jesus loves you and me and He will always come to find us. We are just a couple of sheep out of an uncountable number, but that does not mean that Jesus will forget about us, will not notice when we are not part of His flock. He pays attention to us and when we get lost and separated from Him, He will undoubtedly come and search for us.

At this point it is up to us to listen for Him. We need to welcome His arrival and not fight Him when He gets behind the wheel again, where He should be and truly where He always is, even when we are trying to give it a go. We are incapable of handling life on our own. We simply cannot do it. When I was making my bed yesterday morning, I told myself that I need to relax, I need to let things go, stop trying to micromanage everything, and I need to stop trying to be Jesus. I am not Jesus. I cannot do the things He does and the only way that I am going to get better, going to grow, going to find peace, is when I stop trying to grab at the steering wheel. I have a sticker on my water bottle that says, "God uses broken things." How am I going to be able to be a vessel for God when I am lost? I am broken because I am a sinner, but I am incapable of being the best child of God that I can be when I am not near Him, when I have wandered away, when I have tried to put on the superhero cape and give it a whirl. I am much better off in the passenger seat, when I can be with Jesus, I can trust in His guidance and knowledge, and therefore be ready for God to use me in His grand plan however He sees fit.

Matthew's verses and Luke's verses also tell us also about the joy when the sheep is recovered. Jesus loves us so much that He rejoices when we come back to Him. In Luke's parable, He directly relates that to repenting. When we get lost in life and wander, and then Jesus finds us, it is important that we repent for our sinful behavior. If we simply get back into the car with Him and keep nagging to drive again, what have we learned? Recognizing that we are incapable of driving ourselves and submitting ourselves to God is the entire point of Christianity. We cannot do it alone. Job 22:21 says "Submit to God, and you will have peace; then things will go well for you." This Bible verse notes that Jesus is good at driving. He knows how to take it all in stride. He is holy, He is almighty, and He is more capable than any of us could ever be. In this way, we have the opportunity to trust Him. We can stop trying to grab at the wheel, we can give our lives entirely over to God and watch Him use His love for us to guide us throughout life. Giving up control is not an easy goal to achieve, and I think most of us will be wandering off from this goal more than once, but it is crucial to listen for Jesus when He calls our name. Romans 10:17 tells us that "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." We can practice our faith by listening for His voice throughout life, but especially when we feel lost. He could be finding us again after we wander off. And then rejoicing because He has found one of His beloved children once again.