Get out of the drivers seat !!
Great excitement, after months of waiting, the baby has arrived …. the time comes to take mum and baby home from the hospital, the first real weight of responsibility dawns.
Is the car seat fitted correctly?
Are they going to be warm enough? or too warm?
This new life is their responsibility now, they’re excited but also a bit apprehensive.
Over the coming years , the baby becomes a child, the child becomes a young adult, and roles start to change. The young life you’ve been responsible for is maturing, making decisions of their own, they no longer want to be a passenger , but in the drivers seat; it is inevitable that at some point, they want you in the passenger seat next to them – gasp! horror! Suddenly you’re in their hands –
do you get out of the drivers seat ….
do you surrender to their wishes and thus allow them to learn and grow, or do you resist?
Surrender means looking at the options, weighing them up and making decisions.
Being a christian can be a bit like that, we know Jesus, we’re very comfortable having Him in the passenger seat, but somewhere along the journey He says, “ it’s great sitting here beside you, but actually , I would like to drive, will you let me have the steering wheel?
What do you do then?
Jesus says, I can take you to better places, quench your thirst, make you stronger, give you peace, but first I want you to surrender, let me have the steering wheel.
Will you surrender to Him or resist?
What! not be in charge of my of my life, my destiny I hear you say, you want me to leave my life in His hands? Give it all over to Him!
We can’t just tap Jesus on the shoulder from time to time and say, ‘ hey Jesus I have a bit of a heath issue, can you do something about it, or this problems getting to me will you give me peace of mind. Jesus isn’t offering us a crutch to use when we’re limping along in life and feeling weak. He wants to be there guiding us, showing us the way. It’s a hard call to live for Him, it certainly isn’t the soft option, and no you don’t just become a puppet.
Colin and I were watching a film the other day called “Midway” it’s a second world war film with army, navel and air force all working together, but what struck us was the immense responsibility those top officials had when making decisions which affected so many people. They made the decisions, gave their orders and the armed forces carried those orders out. They weren’t just puppets doing as they were told. They were trained professionals doing their jobs and they did them to the best of their ability; they surrendered to the orders that were given them.
For most of us, there is someone there overseeing what we are doing, giving out the orders, we either submit to them or rebel.
With Jesus at the steering wheel, he’ll train us and equip us for what he wants us to do, and life can certainly be challenging at times.
Looking at the options
There’s nothing passive about being a christian, God expects us to make choices, He expects us to use our creativity, use our initiative, not just accept circumstances in a fatalistic way.
I remember when our eldest son had his accident some years back now, he wasn’t expected to survive, as he lay in a coma, his body being twisted with spasticity, we were asked if he could be included in a research program. We looked at the information we had been given, prayed about it and God gave us the courage to go ahead and have him included in that program. Now if you met him and didn’t know anything of the past you wouldn’t know how contorted his body had been at that point in his recovery.
We were told the facts, given choices and we had to decide, God has been and is still traveling with us on that journey with Andrew
It doesn’t have to be extreme circumstances though, if we surrender to Jesus He is there with us all the time.
It’s not all about external circumstances that Jesus wants to be in charge of, –
it’s what is going on in our hearts and minds,
it’s our attitudes, our loves our hates, it’s how we deal with things.
What is there in your life that God could be challenging?
Your job
A relationship
How you spend or use your money
How you use your time?
When I first became a christian there was a song I used to sing,
“ All to Jesus I surrender , All to Him I freely give
I will ever trust and love Him, in His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Saviour I surrender all.”
Surrendering all means handing my life over to God and listening to what He might be saying to me, even if it’s not what I want to hear.
We like to hear comforting words like
“come to me all you who are heavy ladened and I will give you rest”
Matt 11v 28“ Ask and it will be given you seek and you will find knock and thew door will be opened to you “
Matt. 7 v 7
But what about words like
“ unless you are willing to take up your cross daily and follow me you are not fit to be my disciple,
Matt 10 v 38
We don’t like to hear that we’re doing wrong, or that we’re sinful but the truth is we are.
The good news is ….. Jesus can help us change, but for that to happen we have to hand over the reigns, give Him the steering wheel.
Isn’t it a relief to know there can be someone infinitely more capable of running your life than you are?
BUT …. it’s not just a one off decision, because we forget, we go back to trying to do it all ourselves, then we need to ask His forgiveness and give Him back the steering wheel.
In my life and in yours there is always the question who is driving?
I can have a rebellious heart and tell God to keep out of the car altogether,I’ll do it my way.
I can have a divided heart, keeping Jesus there by the side of me, but continuing to drive myself, the trouble with that is, having a divided heart makes us miserable, we know what we should do, but because we won’t do it we often feel unhappy and guilty and it gnaws away at us.
Alternatively, I can give my life over to God, and seek to obey the best I can, I will lose the life I had, but I will gain a much better one, and find in the end that what I lost wasn’t really worth keeping anyway.
God knows the pain of surrender.
The night Jesus was betrayed, he went into the garden of Gethsemane and prayed
“Let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but your will be done.” Matthew 26v39
Jesus surrendered his own will to God. He was arrested, tried, flogged and crucified.
Why?
Because he was willing to be the sacrifice that God needed to redeem us.
He allowed himself to be separated from God, die and then to rise again.
What is there in my life and yours, that we need to die to?
Are there temptations we won’t relinquish?
Is there a habit we need to break?
Is there a decision that is wearing us down?
A task that is particularly difficult?
It is said there are many things that deplete our energy levels, but amazingly enough, the act of
surrender actually replenishes our vitality, there is a freedom by submitting to God.
What will you do?
Will you just keep him as your passenger, comfortably sitting next to you?
Will you hand your life over to Jesus, will you become liberated through him?
It’s your decision?