Will letting go of the steering wheel give me back my joy?

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Phillippians 2:13 "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

One thing prodigals seem to have in common is that they don’t want anyone telling them what to do. We can speak to that with some authority, can’t we? And spending five minutes with any two-year-old will show us that they too have a will of their own. However, I don’t think prodigals and two-year-olds have a monopoly on that particular character trait.

None of us really like letting go of the steering wheel and letting someone else be in control, do we? While that’s true as a general statement, that need to take control becomes almost obsessive when we are fearful, frustrated or angry. That’s what happened when a Scranton, Pennsylvania woman named Steffanie Ramos was fighting with her boyfriend, who was driving the car.

The argument escalated until Steffanie, in a rage, reached out, grabbed the steering wheel and caused the car to crash. Her boyfriend was killed, and her kids were seriously injured. This young woman is serving 10-20 years in prison, and her life was changed forever.

While we could bunny trail our way to a discussion on anger, the real problem here was that she should have kept her hands off the steering wheel. She tried to control what wasn’t her responsibility or her right to control. Those things belonged to the driver, and the driver wasn’t Steffanie.

It isn’t easy to let go and just let things happen when our lives or the lives of people we love seem to be out of control. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t look at the circumstances and tell ourselves we could fix this. Then there are the times when our circumstances are so terrible and the pain so great that everything within us cries out against the unfairness of it.

My friend Sandra lost her only son to a drunk driver several years. Her son was a wonderful young man, who planned to be a medical missionary. Sandra couldn’t understand such a devastating loss and how could she? She told me she has learned much on this terrible journey. And more than any other thing, she has learned about the sovereignty of God.

We aren’t always going to understand the things that happen. Indeed, how could we understand when “God’s ways are not our ways nor His thoughts our thoughts?” (Isa 55:8-9) I think we do ourselves a disservice when we say Jesus has called us to walk with Him and beside Him. He hasn’t called us to walk with Him; He has called us to follow Him. (Matt 4:19) And those are two entirely different things.

I don’t know what you’re going through right now, but I can say with confidence that God is at work here both in you and in your circumstances. He’s working things for His glory and our good. However much it hurts, however great the loss, however difficult the circumstances…God’s got this. And letting go of the steering wheel might just give us back our joy.

Challenge for Today: What might happen if we, just for today, let go of the steering wheel and let God be God?