When people insist that they drive, it usually means one of two things: that we’re riding in their car and it makes more sense for them to drive, or, more often, that they know that they know how to drive and can keep everyone safe. They have control. Which, if we’re talking cars and roads and highways, I do understand.
But, as usual, we’re not talking about cars. We’re talking about life. And though we do like to sit in the driver’s seat, we often find that the steering wheel is something that we have no clue how to operate, and instead of letting someone who does know how to handle it do so, we get frustrated and throw our hands up. That’s when God, who we’ve forced into the passenger seat, says “give Me the keys.”
That can be scary, but it’s vital. Let’s open up to Proverbs and Isaiah today.
We know that there are situations we can control in life, but truthfully, there are many more that we can’t. Ironically, it’s the things we can’t control that we want to control most. Those are also the things that belong in God’s hands, because we’re not meant to hold them. We are truly meant to depend on God to work them out. Proverbs 3:7 TPT says, “Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.” That goes to say this: God knows we cannot fix every problem and didn’t tell us to do so. And we cannot act like we can.
I think that God also uses our lack of control to build our trust in Him. When there’s a snowstorm on the way, we pray that it won’t pack the roads with ice so that we won’t lose power and can drive safely. The lack of control there puts our trust fully in God, because we know that the only one who can control the weather is in fact God. However, the only one who can control a myriad of situations is God. We have to treat everything that is uncontrollable like a snowstorm. We have to put it in God’s hands and leave it there.
God also sees what we don’t see and knows what we don’t know. Let’s get hypothetical here, and bear with me: say that a dear friend cuts you off out of nowhere. Of course, you’re distraught. However, God knew that one, that friend didn’t need to be your friend, and two, if you’d had control of the situation, you two would still be friends. In fact, Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV say, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” The friend in this situation may not have been malicious, per se, but the Lord knows things about them that you may not have. We have to remember that God sees anything that doesn’t meet the eye (or heart).
In the same way, He knows things about us that we don’t know about ourselves. I’ve found myself in real-life situations where I wanted one thing, but God gave me another, and looking back on it, I understand why I didn’t have it my way. I literally sat and cried at a closed door because I didn’t have the key to unlock it, and believe me when I say that I was totally convinced that this was the door and I needed that key. But we can’t open doors that are meant to be closed.
And had the Lord handed said key to me, I may have unlocked the door too soon, or opened it to find that it was the wrong one. If I had the power to pick every single lock that piqued my interest, then I don’t know where I’d be. Human emotion can be a folly. That’s why we shouldn’t drive when we’re crying—in fact, that’s why we shouldn’t drive at all, and we should give God the keys.
There’s also a lot of comfort in the fact that God is in the driver’s seat, because He can handle rough and winding roads, while we can’t. What I mean is that God gets us through situations that seem impossible in ways that only He knows. God is fantastic at seeing ways out when there seems to be no way out—in other words, if God can’t find a backroad to bypass all that traffic, He’ll create one. And if He doesn’t, He will drive you through it, and won’t be a minute late. Everything we’re worried about, and everything we want to fix—we’ve got to give it to God. Let Him take control of all of it. He can handle it!
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Katie Pennington is a writer and editor who is originally from Hazard, Kentucky, but currently resides with her family in central Tennessee (though she frequently visits her Appalachian roots). Her favorite Bible verse is Psalm 42:5, which reminds her that in despair, there’s hope in God, and there’s healing in praising Him.