Every night on my way home, I drive these dark, curvy mountain roads. One night last week, as I approached the top of a curvy hill, I was met with headlights, not on the opposite side of the road, but on my side. I had no time to react, I just braced for the impact as I was collided into.
This is my only way home, I’ve had to drive through the same blind spot every day since then. Roads that I’ve driven 100 times without thought are now terrifying. Every time a car passes me in the opposite lane, I feel paralyzing fear that they are not going to stay in their lane. What guarantee do I have that anyone is going to stay in their own lane anymore?
This reminded me of how we react to life when we face head-on collisions in our own darkness. We’ve been hurt by people that have invaded our lanes. By circumstances that have broken us. And now we’re afraid. We operate our lives focusing on our fears, white-knuckling it, hoping to God that it doesn’t happen again, no longer able to enjoy the ride.
It seems like every back road in Tennessee is a two-lane road with no middle dividers. I drive for my job and as I found myself wincing as every car passed me, I realized I had a choice. A choice to drive in fear every day or to trust that God is sovereign. Even over head-on collisions. Learning to trust in the face of real hardship, danger, and the complete unknown is learning to be comfortable with fear. To stop resisting it but to acknowledge it’s there and that all I can do is choose to focus on my own lane, trusting that all collisions go through God’s hand. If he is in control of any aspect of my life, he’s in control of all of it.
We can never know the reasons, the outcomes, the lessons, the refining, the provisions, the why’s in advance. But we can choose faith. Faith that God is good and he is working everything for good and for His glory in our lives. Nothing is out of his reach, his grasp. His arm is never too short to save us although the saving might feel like destruction.
So as we face our fears by removing our focus from the object of it and placing it on Jesus, we can move forward. We know that the pain of the collisions of life will not crush us, will not destroy us, and will not stop us from living the purpose that God has prepared in advance for us to live.
For we look at the ultimate collision, the collision of sin and suffering and a perfect God-Man having to experience the full impact of the crash of humanity on the cross so many years ago and we can know wholeheartedly how very much God loves us. For He sacrificed his Son so that we might be saved.
In our own suffering, our heartaches, our messy accidents, whether at fault or not, he will transform what the enemy means for evil into chain-breaking victorious new life. We can count on it, trust it, and walk in confidence today!
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9
