Jesus at the Wheel

     I was eighteen years old, driving my first car, a sporty little Volkswagon Scirocco. Making a left hand turn from a controlled green light, I had just finished my turn and merged into the right lane, when a small pickup opposite me decided to make a left hand turn into the parking lot to my right. With no time to react, I hit my brakes. Time stood still…literally.  I saw the gentleman’s look of horror as he realized his mistake, I saw the truck pass through my car in front of me and end up in the parking lot, both of us unscathed. When time sped back up, I was braked at the curbside. Looking to my right, I could see the pickup also stopped and the driver shaking his head and crossing himself. He waved to me with a half-smile and drove on. I thanked the Lord and also continued on my way in awe and bewilderment, unsure of whether or not what had happened had indeed happened.

     A few years later, I was speeding along the German Autobahn at night during a snowfall. Kayla was a newborn babe asleep in her car seat in the backseat. It was the end of an adventurous day. We had been to visit my husband, her father, who was away at training…we had been late arriving in the first place. I had taken a wrong turn or missed a turn and had ended up on the French Border, in the middle of winter, in the middle of nowhere, knowing only English. Prayerfully, God righted us and when we arrived hours late, my husband was understandably upset.

     That evening, while headed home, a blizzard kicked up as blizzards sometimes do. I heard a whisper at my ear, “Slow down.” I looked at my maxed out speedometer and down shifted. As the car slowed, the snow flurries parted and just ahead of me I saw tail lights of a semi-truck and trailer. If I had not been warned to slow down….

     During the two and half years we traveled each Sunday as a family, to minister, I would remember those lifesaving moments. We always prayed before getting on the road that led over a mountain pass and into and through the heart of Los Angeles traffic. There were close calls, but mostly, I always felt we were being protected during each trip. We had been making the trip regularly for a few months and had heard tell of the infamous Tule Fog. We got a kick out of the local Fog Days, which delayed school days until the fog lifted. Not being able to see two feet out our backdoor did nothing to prepare us for actually driving in it, however.

    We usually began descending out of the pass between 10:30pm and 11:30pm, depending upon how late we got on the road. This particular night, we were on the road earlier than usual. Just beginning our descent into our valley, normally lit up with twinkling scattered lights, but this night there was no illumination whatsoever. A thick gray cloak spread in front of us and all around us. There was nowhere to pull off until completely out of the pass and one could not make out any other vehicle lights. Creeping along and praying, I recall how disconcerting it was as a passenger to not know up from down. It seemed we were floating in limbo amidst a gray nothingness.

   Once clear, we pulled over well off the roadway until the fog alleviated. We could hear the semi-trucks and other vehicles creeping by. Somewhere near, we heard the running motors of resting semi-trucks and idling vehicles. Slowly, we began to see lights, then shapes. We still made it home at our usual midnight arrival, but thankfully, what had seemed insignificant events earlier in the evening, had obviously led the way to us being early returning and alert during the fog.

    On our weekly ventures, I had taken to praying for those “before us, around us, behind us” on the highway as we asked God to “go before us, be beside us and protect us from behind.” Fellow drivers look a whole lot different when we include them in our prayers! One rainy Sunday morning, we were crawling along in traffic when we noticed rain ahead of us, to either side of us and behind us, but our car remained dry-not a single raindrop on the windshield!

     I was blessed during most of our travel season to be able to do the driving on Sunday mornings so Chris could rest. He worked nights and upon getting off work at 7:00am, we would hit the road by 7:30am. He and the girls would nap during the two hour trip. This left a quiet car and with an open heart to listen, ample opportunity for God to speak to my heart and teach.

     One such lesson was that of obeying the speed limit. Rushing along “with the flow of traffic,” it dawned on me that especially in the curves, inclines and steep grades, speed limits served an important purpose. Signs announcing a slower speed ahead are similar to God’s loving warnings. Traffic laws are set in place to keep us from harm.

     One Sunday morning, while sitting on the carpet, surrounded by Sunday School children and Youth Group teenagers, I shared this epiphany. After church, a young lady in the Youth Group thanked me, “that lesson spoke to my heart, as I realized lately I have been rushing from one thing to the next and spreading myself too thin.”

     “Slow down,” God seems to say when in the hustle bustle of my day, I must endure long lines at the grocery store or a wait at the Post Office. “Slow down,” I hear when plans go awry and I am delayed. We never know why, but we may rest assured that in God’s perfect timing, we are exactly where we are when we need to be. I am reminded of the old story of the businessman who endured countless delays and missed his flight. The same airplane crashed mid-flight.

“And we know that all things work for the good according to God’s purpose.”

-Romans 8:28