Who Do You Believe? Who Is Driving Your Car? (Session 1) Series

Who is driving your car?

Imagine for a moment that you have decided to buy a car. Rather than head off down the London Road to one of the many car dealers, or one of the used car supermarkets at Lakeside, you decide to visit the massive Toomey dealership on Cherry Orchard Way to look at new cars.

When you arrive the shining exteriors and technical brilliance of the new cars are hard to resist. You spot one car and it just blows your mind with all of the add-ons it comes with. Parking sensors, DVD player, and electric seats. This car does not just have cup holders – it has a built in coffee machine.

The car is amazing, but it has one unalterable deficiency. It will only function if it has an intelligent driver behind the wheel. Without a driver, this car is just something to look at. If you pushed it down a steep hill without a driver behind the wheel, it would careen down the hill, damaging anything in its path until it finally crashes.

As humans, we function best when we let God be in the driving seat. Maybe our pride does not like it, but we need to be led and directed in life by having a close connection with our Lord. Every one of us at some time of our life has chosen to shove God out of the driver’s seat.

Which of these statements best describes where you are now?

- I have given God the wheel and He is driving my life’s car.

- God has the wheel, but I have my foot on the brake.

- I am behind the wheel and occasionally ask for directions.

- I would like to ask God for direction.

- I find it best to drive with a blindfold on and fingers in my ears.

From childhood, we are taught to “Do it ourselves”. We live our lives with a desire to be independent. Even as Christians we are often guilty of wanting to be the one in control, “Don’t drive me God, I want to drive myself”.

Are there specific situations where you find yourself trying to rationalise a decision or try to handle a problem in your life, without reference to God, God’s Word or God’s will?

Someone described trying to live life without God being “as stupid as holding your breath because you are upset you need to breathe”. If we cut ourselves off from the source of divine love and power, it is like cutting a tree off its roots. A car needs a driver; a tree needs roots; we need air and we need God.

In the book Joy Unspeakable, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones quotes the psychiatrist Carl Jung as someone who unexpectedly agreed that we all need God: “Those psychiatrists who are not superficial have come to the conclusion that the vast neurotic misery of the world could be termed a neurosis of emptiness. Men cut themselves from the roots of their being, from God, and then life turns empty, inane, meaningless, without purpose, so when God goes, goal goes, when goal goes, meaning goes, when meaning goes, value goes, and life turns dead in our hands”

When God, “the root of our being,” takes the wheel of our car, starts the engine, revs the motor, steers it in the right direction, and feeds us the right amount of fuel, life does not turn dead in our hands.

Why do we often find it difficult to beleive that God will always guide us on the best road and in the wisest direction?

The prophet Jeremiah put it this way in Jeremiah 33:2-3: ‘This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it – the LORD is his name: “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”’

The call from God has not changed, He is still interested in the details of our lives, even in the small things He offers help. The promise of Exodus 33:14 is ours: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you life”.

“Now, here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God – that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.”