Tom needs me to help him drive. Any time really, but especially on road trips. I point out brake lights ahead, traffic signs, or slowing traffic. He acts like he doesn’t need my help and even tells me to “relax” sometimes. (Grrr) But down deep, we both know I’ve probably saved us from certain wreckage many a time!
Maybe that’s why when I took one little wrong turn while driving on our latest road trip he laughed until he was choking and crying. The road was complicated and I thought I was veering off right. Tom and Ben were nearly screaming, “straight, go straight,” but nah, I bailed off right because I was pretty sure that was the way. It wasn’t. They acted like I’d delayed us hours, but turned out we just looped around for a few minutes and got right back on the straight and narrow. I probably saved us a wreck or something because of the detour.
Tom laughed. Ben laughed. Zack laughed. Whatever.
We had a great time seeing the ocean! It’s such a mysterious place to me! So many creatures we can’t see. Tides. Waves. How deep is it? It’s so cool!
Driving over the bridge on our way home we saw a coast guard boat zooming though the expanse of water. I asked, “Can you imagine being in the open sea and in the middle of a storm? With the waves huge, tossing your boat around?” I’ve never been in a hurricane, but I know the ocean I love turns wild and angry.
It made me think of Paul and the shipwreck. They hadn’t seen the sun for days, the waves were beating them endlessly, and they were scared all was lost! Some of the crew thought they’d bail out, but Paul saw them and said, “You must stay with the ship to be saved.” They listened, and no souls were lost when the ship wrecked!
Jesus is the Ship. He is the Straight and Narrow Road. When things get complicated we can’t bail off right just because we think we know better. When things get scary, we can’t bail out and try to work it out ourselves. We have to stick with Jesus. We have to stay with Him. There ain’t no probably about it, He, for real, has saved us from certain wreckage! Amen to that!