If there is something that I have learned in my short 20 years of life, it is that life is not always easy. Sometimes I look back on my childhood and miss the feeling of being carefree and unconcerned about finances, school, and responsibilities. As a kid, it seemed that nothing could ever go wrong and everything was wonderful. That is one of the beauties of childhood. Children are not concerned about responsibilities and appearances. They see everything through a lens of wonder and excitement. Even when things get rough, they are strong and joyful because they are not focused on the bad things. My mom once told me that it is when we are focused on ourselves that things get hard. What we struggle with in our lives might not be a struggle for someone else. At this point, we have to take a step back and ask ourselves, “why is this hard for me?” If we could only take our eyes off of ourselves and keep them on God, things that seem hard to us now would seem like nothing compared to power of our Creator.

May 6, 2019

“Dad, Mom, Melody, and I are staying in motel room #3. It was a long drive, and I got 4 hours of driving in. We saw several semi’s hauling two levels of pigs. We hit a really bad rain shower while I was driving and I could not see at all. We ended up pulling over and Dad drove the rest of the way…”

In this journal entry, we had driven down to Branson, MO for a week. At the time, I had my driver’s permit, so my dad let me drive a few hours here and there for practice. The drive was long: 10-11ish hours, 4 of which were spent in Iowa. My dad always jokes that “all black holes lead to Iowa” because it is so flat and empty. It is a beautiful state, but when it comes to driving, it gets boring real fast. It’s no wonder why he let me drive; it would be awfully hard to get lost on a straight highway of grassy, flat land.

Towards the end of the drive, we hit a horrible rainstorm. I was driving at the time, and it was so bad I could hardly see the tail lights on the car in front of me. My dad finally had me pull over, and I proceeded to climb to the backseat and let him drive us to a rest stop where we waited out the storm. Knowing that I could not see driving, I had to trust my dad to drive us through the storm. And, boy, was I glad to let him drive!!

Image by Franz Bachinger from Pixabay

This story is a lot like our lives. When we take our eyes off of God, it is like sitting in the drivers seat of a car. We are focused on ourselves, which seems fine in the moment, but as soon as a storm hits we find ourselves lost and without a vision. But like the tail light in my story, the Holy Spirit guides us to the place of surrender (the curb). It is at this point when we recognize that we can’t make it through the storm on our own, so we surrender our lives back to God, just like I surrendered the drivers seat to my dad. And God, like my dad, will bring you to a safe place where you can rest as you wait out the storm. Life is not easy and we are bound to hit storms now and then. My encouragement to you all is to keep your eyes on Jesus. If it happens that you lose sight of Him, I pray that you reach for His hand, like Peter did, and allow Him to bring you back to Himself.

*Feature image by Dorothe from Pixabay