I've continued to think about my accident yesterday. I lost control of my Jeep when I hit a patch of ice, spun 180 degrees around, and crashed into the guardrail. 5 seconds without control of my car felt like 5 hours.
The first person I thought of was Jesus. I probably said his name 15 times in those 5 seconds. It was 5 seconds of spinning and saying, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."
I've seen something as a pastor. You can't live very long without losing control of your life. Cancer, job loss, relationship breakdowns; no one plans for them. They sneak up on us. They surprise us. And they strip away any illusion of control that we thought we had. In those moments, when 5 seconds feels like 5 hours, and you feel like your life is spinning out of control, the smartest thing you can do is think of Jesus and speak His name as often as you can.
I think there's a correlation between losing control and depending on God. For some reason it seems more difficult for most of us to depend on God when we feel like we have control of our lives. When things are going as planned we can be rather self-dependent. But when we hit a patch of ice and start spinning, all it takes is about 5 seconds for us to be reminded that we're in big trouble without God's help.
That's crazy man! I'm praise god that you're ok. We should always be looking to seek Jesus' will in our lives. Not just when things spin out of control. Such moments remind us how long it's been since we've actually went to seek Jesus and as you said how little control we really have. I personally find it easy to seek Jesus when things are bad but difficult when things are going good. Something I am working on myself and something we should allways remember.
Posted by: Brian Corson | December 04, 2005 at 09:05 PM