Need For Speed

I like to drive fast! I’m a speed fanatic. Once a year, my gracious wife, Joanne allows me to go track racing with my car. She reluctantly turns a blind eye, but knows it’s the only thing she can do for me to get it out of my system…once a year…legally. To be clear, on the streets of Vancouver, I rarely drive over the speed limit. I do however like getting to the speed limit as quickly as I can. In my mind, going from zero to the speed limit should be done as fast as possible! You have to work within the parameters you are given right? Well, when I do this, and I have a passenger in the car, I often see them holding onto the overhead handles and slamming on the imaginary brakes in fear. Remember in driver’s ed, when the instructor’s car had brakes on the passenger side? My car obviously doesn’t have those. But on several occasions, I’ve caught people slamming their foot on the floor of my car as if there were. It’s as if their brain knew that there were no brakes, but their body was telling them that they needed to do something to contribute to their safety. They felt helpless in the moment, so in an effort to tell their brain that they were going to somehow make the situation better, they did something that would make absolutely no difference at all.

It’s a funny thing isn’t it? I’m sure we’ve all done it at one time, maybe as a passenger in the car of a bad driver. We tried to brake when we didn’t have the brakes. We tried to grab control, when we didn’t have control. The fact of the matter is that when we’re afraid, we try to get control. We try to believe that we have control. Which leads me to hypothesize that for us as Christians who find ourselves in such situations, we often try to “do” something. It’s almost as if we try to help God. Somehow, we’ve been programmed to believe that “God helps those who help themselves”. Ever heard this quote? Well, it’s not in the Bible! We conjured this up ourselves. We believe that when we’re afraid, in times like a COVID-19 pandemic; in times when things seem out of control, we want to help God…which is comical if you think about it. If God needs your help, He is no longer God. If God is in need of anything, He is no longer all powerful and omnipotent. God is God all by Himself. Let’s get one thing clear though. I’m not against masks, or social distancing, or washing your hands while singing “Happy Birthday”, or the amazing work our first responders are doing, but it becomes apparent to me that when I’m afraid and when times are uncertain, even though I know that God’s in control, I still think that I’m probably going to need to do something because God will help me if I help myself.

So, what happens when a battle show’s up at your doorstep (like this pandemic) and you didn’t order it from Amazon Prime? What happens when you are diagnosed with cancer (that’s another one of my stories for another time)? May you rest in the peace of knowing that our God is most certainly all powerful, that He’s still seated on the throne, and that we don’t need to “do” anything per se. What we CAN do is continue trusting in His goodness, be obedient to His calling, and stand firm on Him who is our rock. Hear these words of encouragement that served as my anthem with my battle with cancer from 2 Chronicles 20:17 that should hit you like ton of bricks (it certainly did for me!) – “You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out (or in our case, stay home) to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you”.