Driving with Androids

When Greyhound Lines had a slogan, “Leave the driving to us,” I took a bus to Denver. But it took 40 hours (I could have driven it in 18). But Good News! We'll soon have an alternative: “Leave the driving to Androids.”

By next year, you will be able to purchase a hands-free car. While technology is still limited, fully driverless automatons will be ready by 2020. But I won’t. Putting myself in the hands of an android would drive me crazy. That said, however, relying on robots is something we must do if we are to survive in a world driven by computer chips.

How much more then should we trust God in the driver's seat. We have to believe our life is in His hands if we can be content in this world. Well, where the rubber meets the road is when He takes that first unexpected turn, or brakes suddenly. Will we grab the wheel away? Remember how hard it was on Israel when God 'drove' them out of the Promised Land? (Jer. 32:37). Maybe hands-on humans won't be so enamored with driverless autos after all.

Sitting on God’s Front Porch

In our new neighborhood, we have neighbors who sit on their front porches all day. From that vantage, they see everything that happens around them. Did it ever occur to you that God has a front porch!

When we were born again, we were 'seated in Christ.' Now, we have a “standing” invitation to “sit” with Him on the front porch of the Universe, seeing as He sees—His perspective. As long as we remain inside our private places, we only see what ‘we’ see. But on God's front porch, we see it all.

How often do we pray, “Lord, please help me to see what you are doing in my world and to see what you are doing in my life.” Can't you just hear God saying, “I will be glad to show you what I see and what I am doing. Come join me on the front porch!”

Backseat Drivers

Greyhound Bus Company used to have a slogan "Go Greyhound—and leave the driving to us." Now of course their slogan meant that you could sit back and enjoy having someone else drive. I am quite sure their slogan was not an indirect way of asking you not to interfere with the drivers, as if to say “please leave us alone while we’re driving!”

But a lot of people approach God this way. Instead of being able to relax and enjoy His driving, they become very expert ‘back-seat’ drivers. I think the most annoying thing about a backseat driver is his/her assumption that you, the driver, don’t know what you are doing. How insulting! So why do we presume to tell God how to direct our lives? ‘But I would never do that,’ you say. Well, may I suggest that whenever you complain about one of God's “turns,” you are back-seat driving.

During a time when Israel refused to follow the Lord, the prophet Isaiah spoke for God: “I am patiently waiting for you to return (let me back in the diver's seat), and when you do, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, turn to the right or to the left” (Is. 30:18, 21 author’s translation). They were definitely going the wrong way on a one-way street, and God was trying to turn them around. But they paid no attention; and got into a terrible accident (they drove right into their enemy's camp and were slaughtered!). Maybe God’s word to us is not to unlike the Greyhound Bus Company slogan: “leave the driving to Me.”