A year ago, God gave me a car. It was a much better car than I would ever have bought, much newer, and has been the source of many conversations with God but the one I want to focus on today is my conversation with Him about whether to keep it!
My normal cars have been little. I am not a tall person so reaching the pedals was often an issue, they handled well in all kinds of weather, they were cheap to run and insure. I had had a period of sharing a car and then no car for a while. During that period, I was challenged to write a list of 100 dreams, which I did not share with anyone except God, and one of the things I wrote on that list was that I would like access to a car again. I wasn’t bold enough to say I wanted a car of my own and decided I hadn’t enough money anyway. There’s a whole conversation in there about how limiting our abundant God who Paul tells us is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power at work within us…” in Ephesians 3:20. Anyway, it was very shortly after this that I was initially lent the car for what turned out to be a year, and then I was given it. Wow! That dream got ticked off on my list big style.
This car is bigger than I am used to driving. It is an estate and a make I am not familiar with and so there was a process of learning to adapt my driving to suit, to learn what spaces it could park in for example! I had to learn where the controls were, how it handled and so on. It is a lovely car and has all sorts of technology that is such a blessing and that I now would not like to be without. I had a conversation with God one day about why He gave me this car, and not a smaller one. He responded that He was teaching me to carry more weight. In the natural, it has been used to move me to a different location twice, in that period. In the realm of the spirit, He is growing me too. He knows what we need better than us, and He can teach us through anything! I am indeed learning to carry more weight.
Recently, since the insurance was coming up and my renewal was so expensive, I started to contemplate a smaller one. The weather has been more severe this year and I have felt the desire to have a smaller car where I know how it handles in snow and ice. When I was talking to God about it, I realised that I was feeling the pull to the familiar. What I am feeling in this new location is a desire to shrink back to something that feels small, something that I can control. Not just in relation to the car but my whole life. I am feeling the stretch. I have moved to a different location, a different country in fact and much of my life feels unfamiliar, uncomfortable, different. I have a new church context and the challenge spiritually is different. This would be just a little way that I could regain some sense of control over all the new and different things in my life.
This is such a picture of how we often are in the process of change. There is a longing for the familiar. Certainly, no lightning bolt from the sky would strike me if I decided to change my car but that is not the point. For me it is a picture of where I am choosing to put my trust. Stepping out into something new and different requires courage, it requires the capacity to risk. That’s why God said to Joshua, as he faced the Promised Land, those words that so many of us are familiar with, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified. Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9
In that place of transition into something new, it can seem easier to turn round and go back, to give in to fear, the desire to go back to the familiar, even if it wasn’t good. The Israelites in the desert, feeling the squeeze of the change, feeling the discomfort of having to rely on God, complained that, “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Exodus 14:12. We can look back with rose-tinted glasses at the old life in the face of the unfamiliarity of the new. Do I trust his plan, or do I think mine is a better one, even if it means staying in a place of darkness, oppression, or slavery? How many of us have resisted God’s invitation into a new level of freedom, into adventure, because it seems easier to stay where we are. We believe that saying, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” How willing are we to make the necessary changes, to allow God to transform us? Some of us prefer to stay in the place of captivity and moan about wanting to be free. Some of us have given up hope that we ever can be free. Some of us believe it is possible for other people to be free, but not me. I just want to encourage you that we have a big, abundant God. Sometimes it is a daily, or even hourly choice to put our trust in Him in the process of change.
In the last few days, I made the decision that I would keep the car (in my head there was a “for now” tacked on to that decision, but God will challenge that if He needs to.) I told God that I would trust Him. Having made that decision, I was faced with the insurance renewal. I spent a day looking at insurance quotes online. I then rang my current insurers to give them the chance to match my quotes, they couldn’t, but they did give me evidence of much more no claims bonus than they were going to use on my renewal. Then I realised that I am doing less miles currently. The result of all this was that my insurance has turned out to be about half of the renewal price I was given, less than last year’s, and better than I have paid for some time! Wow, God, you did it again! Why do I ever question His capacity, ever doubt His willingness, to provide for me as I choose to put my trust in Him? Why do I ever contemplate decisions that are rooted in fear or a lack of trust?
So, as I thought about this, and as I thanked Him for what He has done this week, I heard Him say “Don’t shrink back!”. Fear limits us in so many ways. It restricts our ability to move forward into the unfamiliar. It stops us from speaking; it stops us from moving. The enemy of our souls would like to keep us small. He would like us to settle for less. He would like to tempt us to rely on our own strength and capacity, which is small. The reality is, we are either trusting in God, or we are trusting in what Satan says. There is no middle ground of, “I am relying on myself.” He would like to tempt us into the illusion of being in control of our own lives, of being independent. Relying on myself, my own ability, on what I know and can control will keep me small, bound, and caged. Giving in to the desire for the security blanket of the familiar, in a time of change, will stop me from moving, growing, and will make me stagnate and possibly miss the Promised Land He has for me. I will end up settling and maybe not see what He has in store for me. Being dependent on God, trusting Him and daring to risk faith in what He says, being willing to step into new, unfamiliar things brings release, growth, freedom, and the adventure of not knowing exactly what is coming next but knowing it will be good because He is good. It brings momentum as God helps us keep going.
In the face of this desire to shrink back, my declaration for several days has been from Psalm 25:1-5, “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. No-one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame … Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long.
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