Road grace

The only thing worse than teaching your teenager to drive is driving with your teenager sitting shotgun while he is taking driver’s ed.  I had no less than 10 infractions as I was driving my child home today.  Cole made me well aware of my rolling stops, my illegal lane changes, my yellow light speed-throughs, and my miles per hour (2 miles over the limit).  He instructed me on driving in the rain and on staying in the center of my lane.  He told me how far ahead to turn on my blinker in town as opposed to in the country.  He suggested that I was following too close.  I suggested he was talking too much and told him to be quiet.  I, of course, did this very sweetly.

Isn’t that how we are in life?  We cruise through our days on autopilot, not really giving much thought to what we are doing, then when someone—even God sometimes--corrects us, we get irritated and tell them to shut up (I did not say this to Cole, I was much more gracious than that) and leave us alone.  But in our heart of hearts, we know that they are right. In fact, if we did things the way they are supposed to be done, everyone would probably be healthier and happier…and safer. 

God gives us rules because He loves us.  He gives us guidelines to keep us safe.  He is not sitting shotgun in our lives, yelling out infractions just to irritate us.   He is living within us, if we are Christ-followers, urging us to follow His way because He loves us. He knows if we will go along with His plans, our lives will be abundant.

We should ask God to show us our sin so we confess and be right with Him.  We should be aware of the people He puts in our lives that speak truth.  We should act when we are convicted in a specific area of our lives.  If we do all these things, maybe we will be able to hear God better when he speaks.  And maybe, rather than correcting us, He will be saying, “Well, done, my good and faithful servant.”

And maybe I should sit shotgun from now on.

His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!

Matthew 25:23