Do You Even Know Where You Are Going?

I am the not-so-proud parent of a five-year-old backseat driver. This can happen when you let your little one ride around in the car as you teach your older children to drive, which is exactly what Son4 has done. So from time to time Son4 asks me questions like these: Are your lights on? What does that sign say? Are you going faster than 60? This generally amuses me, except for when he constantly announces the read-out on the speedometer. But the question that amuses me less is the one when he asks me whether I know where I'm going.

The fact that he has an amazing sense of direction only makes matters worse. If you want to get from Point A to Point B around here, you could probably pop him in the car and he could tell you where to turn. That sense of direction is a wonderful thing, but sometimes I like to take a different route, and that's when we run into trouble. That's when he'll ask me: Do you even know where you're going? Just imagine his voice — it is full of doubt and disdain, like, are you the idiot running the show? This is preposterous of course. I mean — does he?! Furthermore, do I have any interest in getting lost? No. The answer is — Yes, I DO know where I am going.

But in life, I think we ask God this question all the time. We look at the things happening around us, and we think, "Dear God, do you even know where you are going? Do you SEE where we are here?" Honestly, it's a pretty arrogant question, isn't it?

Idiots?

Sometimes when I read the Bible, I am inclined to think the disciples might have been idiots, but usually I remember that they were just humans, without the benefit of hindsight and a New Testament to explain a few things to them. It must have been awfully confusing traveling around with the Son of God without quite understanding who he was or what he was up to. Let's face it: we have the whole Bible and we still don't really understand the Son of God and what he is up to on Earth.

So the poor disciples often appear utterly faithless. They often seem to be freaking out about something that turns out to be nothing -- which means that the poor disciples appear to be a whole lot like us; and though we might think we'd do better if we had some time to hang out with Jesus, Emmanuel, here in the flesh, I am guessing that is just our ego talking and we wouldn't do any better than they did. I recently read these verses from Matthew 14: Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them [the disciples, in a boat], walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

It struck me that much of life is just like the disciples' experience that night. We're just doing our thing -- living our ordinary lives -- and the next thing we know, something scary comes our way: sickness, job loss, relationship troubles, kids making bad choices, etc. And our reactions are the same as the disciples: we are terrified. We don't understand that Jesus is out there on the water and that all circumstances present an opportunity to meet him all over again. I cannot explain your sickness or bankruptcy or divorce or depression or your child's drug use. This world is often a desperate and sad place. I don't have the first idea how God will make a way for these objectively terrible things to work for good, as he says they will. That's the miracle business, and God doesn't need us to see it or understand it in order to make it happen.

Like the disciples, we panic when the unexpected comes our way because we don't yet have the benefit of hindsight and because trust is not our strong suit. But Jesus is on the water, walking toward you. This I DO know. It looks scary, yes, it does. But I hear Jesus saying, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."