When Cruise Control Doesn't Work

When you have travelled along predictably on your familiar freeway long enough, you can be lulled into a sense of safety in your routine—like being on cruise control. But sooner or later, you will encounter some kind of unexpected road hazard—a phone call at two in the morning that your mother has been taken to the emergency room. And immediately, you are forced to disconnect from cruise control. It’s time to keep your hands on the wheel and your foot on the gas pedal—either slowing down or even coming to a dead halt. These interruptions are inevitable. The danger of cruise control is falling asleep and running into one of them.

In the moment of one of these emergencies, you find yourself talking to God with an intimacy you will not otherwise know. Will you be able to say, like the Psalmist: “The suffering you sent was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your principles” (Psalm 119:71).