If God were the driver of the car of my life I don't think I'd keep driving the wrong way. I wouldn't be able to make wrong turns, I wouldn't be racing along to get the the next destination as fast as I could, and I certainly wouldn't need so many u-turns. I wouldn't have choice, free will, if God were chauffeuring me through life.
Rather than the driver, God is more like the GPS (note, not exactly like- just more like). A GPS that picks it's own destination and doesn't always let you see all the upcoming steps. God knows the plans he has for me, and the GPS has a route - a good route-- mapped out. God has things ready and waiting for me to do, and the GPS tells me when this turn and that merge are coming up (sometimes without much warning...).
Recently, I was heading to a sandwich shop on La Grange. "Well! I know where La Grange is, so this shouldn't be a problem." So I leave the GPS off. And miss my turn by several miles.
Arriving late to a sandwich shop is small on the spectrum of messes I could get myself in, I get it. But if we attempt life without God, trying to do things in our own strength and by our own wisdom, we can work ourselves into quite a mess. Quite a disobedient, complicated mess.
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"Go ask her how you can pray for her," God says after church. "That'd be weird-- I don't even know her," I counter. But after a battle of wills (ha) that resulted in obediently approaching her by the coatrack, I realized that God gave the direction because He had everything in motion. That lady had had something on her heart, and she was so thankful. We prayed right then and there.
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In college, I felt that God wanted me to contact some shut-ins and help them out where they needed it. After I got a short list from the church I was attending, I put off calling anyone for several weeks. And then finally I couldn't ignore the list, or God, anymore, so I dialed the first number. After I explained what was going on, the lady on the other end started crying. "You're an answer to prayer!" she said. God had already been setting everything up, already in motion.
My disobedience (because slow obedience is no obedience, as I tell my Kinders) almost kept that woman from an answered prayer.
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God knows what he's doing. Don't turn left when he directs to turn right. Don't turn Him off or tune Him out.
"This is the way, walk in it."
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