We recently drove through freezing rain, sleet, and eventually, snow. One car had flipped entirely over. Another car had turned over on its side. Several cars had slid off the road. Two cars had stalled in the middle of the road. A number of other cars had simply slid off the road on the side. In all, there were probably a dozen or so cars that did not arrive at their final destination.

Before we left on the trip, Ana was especially nervous about traveling in the weather. Jewell encouraged her that Daddy would drive safely. Ana replied that she wasn’t concerned about Daddy’s driving – it was the other nuts on the road that concerned her! (I wonder about her use of the word “other!”) So, Jewell encouraged her to pray about it.

While actually in the car, the girls were not worried much at all. In fact, the whole time (six hours!), they were either reading, playing with electronics, sleeping, or doing other things – writing/drawing. In other words, they exhibited a complete calm and lack of worry during the whole drive. As far as we knew, they never saw the wrecks on the road – the cars that could easily have been us. Granted, we drove 15-45 mph on the interstate, but we arrived safely at our destination.

Spiritually speaking, God is obviously in control. He knows how to get us from point A (our spiritual birth) to point B (heaven). He sees the wrecks along the path, the obstacles, the temptations, the dangers.

Because God is in control, we can rest calmly in the “back seat.” If we focus on ourselves, in the sense of making sure we are faithful to Christ, and live out his word in our lives – serving others sacrificially – then God will safely get us to our final destination. We should have no worries.

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). “Keeping in step” with the Spirit is living by the Spirit’s rule (Galatians 6:16). That, of course, would be His inspired word, the Bible (Eph. 6:17; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

–Paul Holland