No Hands

I thought I was seeing things.
The car was coming down the opposite side of the road.
The man, driving the car, had no hands on the steering wheel.
His hands were above his head.

It reminded me of my bike.
I loved my purple bike.
It was a step above my old bike with the basket in the front and the bell on the handlebars.
It was a girl’s bike…when all the boys had banana seat bikes with tall handlebars.

You always knew when the boys were coming around the corner since they had a playing card or two in the spokes of the wheel.
Those cards made their bike sound like a motorcycle…or so they thought.

Back then, the thing to do was ride your bike with no hands.
All the boys in the neighborhood could easily ride without holding on.
I could never get the hang of it.
Riding with one hand on the handlebars was all I could manage.

The driver had his hands in the air like the boys used to do on their bikes.
I don’t know how far down the road he continued driving that way.
It was not a smart thing to do.

Do you ever see those bumper stickers about God being a co-pilot?
How wrong they are!

God is not co-anything!
God is the pilot…the driver…the navigator.
God is in control!

But I trust in You, O Lord; I say, ” You are my God.” My times are in Your hands.
(Psalm 31:14,15)

Our humanistic tendency insists on putting ourselves at the center.
Everything…including God…revolves around us.
That is totally false and the cause of so many of our problems today.

We are the creature.
We worship the Creator.
Our God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent.
All knowing, All present, All powerful.

God is co-nothing!

Saul was thirty years old when he became king and he reigned over Israel forty-two years…The Philistines assembled to fight Israel, with three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore…When the men of Israel saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns…Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter. So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering. Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived and Saul went out to greet him. “What have you done?” asked Samuel. Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time…I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.” “You have acted foolishly,” Samuel said.
(1 Samuel 13:1,5,6,7-13)

Saul thought God was his co-pilot.
Saul thought he could do what seemed best to him…rather than what God required.
Saul wanted God’s hands off the wheel…so he could do the driving.

It doesn’t work that way!

God is the Driver.

We are not steering.
We are not controlling.
We are submitting…submitting to His will and His direction.

Submission is a terrible word when you want to be the driver.

We follow rules every day…traffic lights, speed limits, waiting our turn in line.
Giving up control is difficult.
It makes us uncomfortable.

We are so much better off when Someone else is the boss.
Yet, we still fight for control all the time.

Samuel continued talking to Saul, “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, He would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of His people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.
(1 Samuel 13:13,14)

A man after His own heart.
A man who knows the power of God and rests in that.
That man was David…King David…from whose lineage would come Christ.

Saul wanted to do the driving.
David knew who the Driver really was.

No Hands.
Not out of foolishness.
Rather, out of submission and obedience to His will.

God is the Driver. I am the passenger.
A new bumper sticker perhaps?