Directions

This weekend I traveled two hours away to visit my friend Betsy, my best friend from high school ( she is still my very current best friend). I am afraid to admit that this was my first highway excursion driven by myself besides the road to-and-from my hometown an hour away. I made plenty of excuses not to drive long distances like this by myself. A major one was that I never had a car that could travel farther than fifty miles. Other excuses came in that I didn't have time, fears of breaking down or weather conditions weren't permissible. When I finally figured out that there was no time like now, I pushed myself out the door ready to see my friend.
I feel like a wimp for even saying this because I have traveled across the U.S. on trips. I've taken long drives and day-long trips on a plane and hours in the airport. How was this trip that took an hour longer than I was used to different? It was different because it was something that I'd never let myself experience. Through different hardships or circumstances in my life I've been asked to grow up in ways I never anticipated. However, experiences like a drive two hours away to some place one doesn't know how to get around can make someone like myself cringe and say, "No, God not today. " In a little way, I'm saying about big stuff in my life, "I don't trust you. I don't trust that You'll to take care of me." I'm doubting that He is who He says He is. In this trip, He showed himself more than trustworthy.
Once I got out the door and got on the road I put some Bill McCready pastoral tunes in and I didn't feel alone as I had thought I would. As his familiar voice came over the speakers, the stress of the road and the fear of getting lost, abandoned or broken down dimmed. Through this time in my vehicle, time alone just me and God, He was using these sermon illustrations and my environment to teach me. As I looked at the road and my hands gripped to the steering wheel, I was reminded of the idea of control. We see ourselves being in the drivers seat in our lives, making the decisions like which exit is correct or whether or not to drive the speed limit. In reality, they are small decisions, but they remind us of who's in control. Are we deciding haphazardly about how we spend our money, who we date, or how we treat others or are we asking the One who can see the road map for directions? It's as if we can only see reality from a zoomed-in Google Map image, but He sees it from the largest Satellite image available and every place in between.
Through this little excursion, He showed me that if I did break down or drive past the city (which I did the first time by the way- ha!) He wasn't going to abandon me. I even got to spend some much needed time with my King, the ruler of my driver's seat.