Designated Driver

As you may or may not know, I design the slides that go on the screen at our church on Sundays. Of all the ones I’ve designed and prayed over each week, this one continues to make it in my list of top 3 favorites.

The photo was taken by my daughter on a road trip. I found it intriguing that the play of motion and light on this wet highway caught her eye. I would not have considered it picture-worthy, but when she showed me, I was delighted. I tucked it away into my photo file and waited for the right scripture to come along. The Message Bible translation of Mark 8:34 provided the match.

I sometimes wonder why I like it so much. Maybe because every time I read it I think, “Oh yeah…I could use a refresher course on that one.” You could stir up some pretty good conversations about freedom of choice and God allowing individuals to make their own decisions, but I don’t think that’s where Jesus was going with this. Our minds are automatically focused on the part about WHO is in the driver’s seat, when the first verse really says it all. “If you are coming with me, you have to let me lead.”

Eugene Peterson writes:
Traditional Christian spirituality is not taking bits and pieces of doctrine and putting them to use, it's entering into the life of God that is already in motion. There is already movement in the Trinity. It's a matter of shifting your image of what's going on. Are we in a spiritual bazaar where we are picking out verses and texts that we can use, or are we in a home that is ordered by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where we can enter into what's already going on? We can learn to be obedient, participant, learn to receive affection and give it. But it's not our home, we're not the ones in charge of this.

Newsflash! God’s plans are already in motion. He’s not waiting around for our great ideas. I’m pretty good at wrapping myself in that “all about me” blanket and often catch myself getting carried away with my own plans and how God will be able to help me live my own “best life.” We aren’t being called to insert God into our plans, we are being called to insert ourselves into God’s plans. There’s no Holy Quadrangle with our names included in "the Trinity + [insert your name here]."

Designating God as your driver may mean giving up the wheel, but when you agree to turn over the wheel and follow Him, I have a suspicion you end up learning “all about Him” and the “real you.”

Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? Mark 8:35-36 (MSG)

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
~Unknown