Driving on Icy Roads

 

They say that there are two types of people in the world: those who like snow, and those who can drive. Over the weekend Saint Louis got its first taste of winter weather this year. While I can’t complain too much, after all it is less than a week until Christmas and I just saw snow plows for the first time, the roads were awful. Commutes of 30 minutes took many upwards of 3 hours, and there were over 700 car accidents reported as of Sunday morning. And I, being far too naive, went out into it willingly.

Now let me say, I am fairly good at driving in icy conditions. I know to take it slow, give plenty of space, and have halfway decent instincts in terms of breaking and steering even if my car starts to slide. But there were two moments Friday night that made me realize venturing outside my door was a BIG mistake.

1. When the lady next to me sped down an ice covered hill at all of 40; proceeded to spin out and hit the curb; then promptly guided her car back onto the road and floored the gas once more.
2. And when I looked ahead, while sitting at a light, and saw the hill I was about to drive on had at least 10 cars either pulled over or actively sliding around, all with their flashers on.

While I managed to get my family to and from our destination without incident, my nerves were shot the rest of the night. In addition, I’ve found myself having a hard time trusting the roads ever since; seriously, I’m driving like I’m sixty. You could say I lost faith in the roads.

Sometimes religious people talk about faith and it gets described as this oddly mystical/childish experience where one is supposed to trust something that frankly doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, based on very little evidence, because it is “faith”.

But is that really faith?

Faith is something we are intimately familiar with and experience everyday.

To me faith is putting your foot on the brake of your car and trusting that it will slow you down before you hit something. Faith is getting on an elevator and trusting that it will take you to the next floor safely. Faith is setting an alarm clock before you go to bed and trusting it to wake you up at the appropriate time the next morning. Faith is something we are intimately familiar with and experience everyday.

Faith in God is no different. We should have it because it makes sense and we can trust it to actually work. I haven’t gone into all of the arguments for having faith in God; maybe that is a later post, maybe that is a conversation that you should have with people around you, or private message me and we can chat. Either way. I’ve looked into it and there is enough scientific, historic, and experiential evidence for me to be very comfortable having faith in God.

Having faith that God exists, or that He loves you and died to forgive you, can be very different than having faith that His ways are the best, or that He will take care of you. Those types of are often like an ice covered lake: you put one foot in front of the other, seeing how much weight the surface can really hold. As long as His ways work out well, as long as nothing bad happens, faith is strengthened. But, if a foot goes through the ice, if a promise is broken, often times faith can be damaged. When that happens it is very easy to react much like I have with the roads. We can trust less, proceed with caution, drive like we’re sixty-seven and have vision problems.

So, if you’ve ever found yourself having issues trusting God (especially during this magical holiday season), or if you’ve done some self reflection and thing maybe this could apply to you. Here are some questions you should ask:

• When did you go through the ice?

Fear or anxiety can often be traced back to specific moments or events. Maybe doubts have been going on for a long time, but when did they start? What cause the first flicker? If you can figure that out you may have an easier time dealing with it.

Or, if there is no “one key moment”; what are your doubts or issues. “God is never there for me” is a lot harder to deal with than “I had the worst week ever last week when my dog pooped on the floor, my heater went out, and a family member got admitted to the hospital”.

Finding the issue itself may not solve anything, but it is the start of fixing it.

• Were you trusting an Elevator to do your Taxes?

Faith crisis’s almost always come from misplaced expectations.

We expect Faith to be this hallmark movie where if we just really trust, things will work out for the best. But they don’t always. Sometimes sick people don’t get better; sometimes a bad week gets worse. God promised to take care of us, he promised to provide, and he promised to never leave us. Having faith means understanding that in light of and in spite of the bad times.

Knowing what God has actually promised you is a great way to avoid “Faith Crisis’s” and make sure your faith isn’t damaged by hard times. If you know what God has promised you will spend less time saying “God, why did you let this happen?” and more time saying “God, help me get through this.”

• Get out on that Bridge and Jump baby, Jump!

Much like I need to stop driving like I’m in my sixties, if your faith has been hurt you cannot limp along forever. It’s not healthy and frankly it isn’t faith. Faith is an exercise of trust. You have seen that God can be trusted, maybe you have even experienced that trust. Faith means taking that trust a step further, going beyond what you are comfortable with.

So, maybe that means trusting that God’s way of life is better than yours and loving more, forgiving more. Maybe that means finding things God has promised you and asking him to make good on that. Frankly if you think about it you probably know what that means better than I do. The point is to go out to the middle of the icy pond, put all your weight on it, and jump up and down repeatedly. (This was a metaphor, please don’t actually do that).

 

There is this picture in the Bible of weak faith; an infant being tossed back and forth by the waves (Ephesians 4:14). Every major life event, every crisis, slamming us back to our knees as we consider if what we believe is even real. On the contrast that mean that mature faith should stand strong, it should barely be moved. Sure we cry out in pain, we hurt, we struggle, but mature faith isn’t rocked to its core by every crisis. It stands firm. That is what I want; how about you?