Are You in Good Hands?

If you were to ask my brother if i am a good driver, i am almost positive that he would hurriedly say no. After surviving a wreck with me as the driver and causing total damage to my dads car, i cant really say that i would blame his negative response. But in my defense, i was a senior in high school and it taught me a valuable lesson and i have to say that i am a pretty good driver now. I know to inch forward when unsure of whether or not a car is coming. Looking both ways is a natural habit of mine, even as a passenger. Yet, to be honest i still find myself replying to a text and veering off the right or left at times. Thankfully, nothing has ever happened but i know that i don't pay as much attention as i could and that other people probably pay less attention than i do.

I work in downtown Dallas, and live about 20 minutes south and so i encounter traffic daily- two times a day to be more accurate. There and back. I see my fill of ridiculous drivers and have learned to cope. Yet there is one thing i can not stand and that is when cars are going a good speed without much traffic and all of sudden you have to come to an abrupt stop. Just last week, that is exactly what happened. So i started to slow down and glanced in my review mirror to make sure the person behind me was slowing down too. He was not. So i took my attention off of the car in front of me as i freaked out wondering if the car behind me was going to stop. I was looking behind me, as if i could control what was behind me. The only thing i could control lied ahead of me and my attention was elsewhere.

It would make a more interesting story, yet more costly one on my part had i not in time looked ahead to come to a complete stop before hitting the car in front of me. My heart that had been racing finally came to a steady rate and this thought hit me, "Don't be so concerned with what's behind you that you miss what's right in front of you!" And i realized that what i have been doing driving, worrying about what is going on behind me,  is a pretty legit reflection of my life. It is so easy to get caught up in our past (past hurts, past failures, past disappointments) that we miss an amazing present and future. I can not control what is behind me. But i do have the amazing opportunity to look life head on and pay attention to where i am going. And not to make it more spiritual, but to do so at the same time- when God stops in front of me (because that is who should be leading the way), i stop. And when He takes a right, that is exactly the direction i take. He is in control. And i can trust His judgment more than my own. There is peace in that.

Now when driving, i try to remain focused on not hitting the car in front of me since i realize there is nothing i can do when in traffic to avoid someone from behind me hitting me. I still have the tendency to look back just to make sure though, just as i have a tendency to glance back at what lies behind me in my life. But i now readily accept that God is in control and as i follow His lead, i am in good hands. Are you in good hands?