Sunday, November 29, 2009

Are we there yet?


In the midst of all this paper-writing, writing a blog post is the perfect way to honor God this Sunday!

Remember that question all the kids on long car rides in movies used to ask? "Mahhh! Are we there yet?!?!" They would repeat it OVER and OVER and you would laugh, all the while wondering in the back of your mind how the parent resisted the urge to reach into the back seat and strangle his/her child.

Don't we do the same thing to God? "God, I have SO many papers due!! Are we there yet? How about now? I can't do it!" We are so good at seeing the end point, but we don't understand how long it could take to get there. Trips that were meant to be five hours become nine-hour, epic journeys due to snowstorms, getting lost, or rain. Unforeseen conditions extend the time it takes to get us to any given destination - traffic, a flat tire, running low on gas.

We are the little children in the backseat of God's car. We see beautiful forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers passing by in the window, but we get scared when we can't see anything outside at night. Everything whips by so fast, Lord! And sometimes, we don't even know where we are going - so far from the comfort of what we know as "home"! We know that You have told us some destination, like "Maine" or "New Jersey," but we don't know what it looks like, Lord! You have told us that we are on our way to Heaven, but we are scared because we don't know where our destination is!!

No matter! You are the GPS, the driver, and the one who can calm even the stormy seas, Lord! Every delay is carefully calculated by you to get us to our destination at the right time, avoiding accidents and any serious harm.

There have been several times when I was driving that I passed by an accident after getting out of the house later than I wanted. I always think, "what if that were me in that accident? What if I had left the house fifteen minutes earlier?" Suddenly, arriving late to a destination is something that I will forget about in approximately 1 hour, whereas a car accident is something that will stick with me for much longer, and perhaps have resulted in my death.

God is a Master Planner. Nothing is done without reason in our lives. So, the flat tire, the red "check engine" light, the fear of being alone in a dark back seat - all of this is meant to get us home in one piece. So, what is a child to do?

A child is to hope, to have faith and trust in the Driver and His ability to know the Way. I'm a horrible driver and have no sense of direction, so it's not too hard for me to imagine that God would be a better driver than I would be. :) But what about those of us who could actually drive? Regardless of our skill, God is always a better driver - what driver do you know that can control the weather, miraculously fix engines without even getting out of the car, and died for us to save the world?!?! None other than Jesus!!

There is a song by Ingrid Michaelson called "Are we there yet" that keeps asking the question: are we there yet? It expresses this sentiment of feeling like there is something more yet to come, but not knowing what that something is. It cries out for a destination, for closure, for something that signifies that we have made it home. Yet, at another point in the song, she sings, "And it won't be too much / 'cause this is too much for me to hold."

There is still a lot of understanding that we have yet to grasp. We understand implicity that God will never give us too much to handle, yet at times it feels too overwhelming because we heap so much on ourselves instead of giving it to Christ. In those times, we simply need to open our eyes, look into the rear-view mirror, see Jesus's smiling face at the driving wheel, and sit back in our booster seat, confident in Our Loving Father. And then we can focus on watching the scenery fly by outside the window - in the darkness or in the light - because it really is beautiful. :)

Then, the question of "are we there yet" becomes irrelevant. We are too focused on the beauty that already surrounds us to even worry about why or how we are getting to our destination. That's for Our Driver to worry about. Our trust is whole, our contentment in Christ full. Man, we have it good, huh? :)

Love in Christ through Mary,
Christina :)

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