Who’s Really Behind the Steering Wheel?

Things are out of control. Rather, things are out of our control. It may not seem like that when you take a quick glance across life however. With all the custom settings possible on everything from our cars to our phones to our coffee pots, you could get the impression we’re in control of so much. But it’s not true.

Spend five minutes in a house with seven kids and the reality that we can’t be in control of everything will become apparent. You literally don’t have enough eyes, ears, or hands to see, hear, or stop everything that’s happening. You have to prioritize. It’s why parents pick their battles and develop a sense of when it’s “too quiet”.

The reality of our lack of control only becomes more obvious as our kids grow. We haven’t entered the driving years yet, but I can’t tell you how many parents have told me how much their kids driving away after getting their license affected them. In our culture there’s little more demonstrative action of a parent’s lack of control than having their child drive away in a 4,000lb hunk of metal on their own. (Side note: I think cruising the internet alone is actually a far more dangerous prospect for kids but we’ll just have to put a pin in that for now).

Nothing brings home a parent’s lack of control as powerfully as when bad things happen though. Lightning strikes, car accidents, fires, illnesses, plane crashes, floods, dog attacks, shootings… These are terrible things but I don’t have to define any of them for anyone. They are all too familiar.

We act to prevent any of these things, but in stark reality we have very little if any control over them. We’ve recently been through some situations that are commonly referred to as near-miss events. Thinking about them really snaps things into focus.

When these things happen it’s common for people to say how lucky we were. But I don’t believe that. Do you really believe it was random chance that caused that life-changing thing not to happen?

When people say that, I think most of them mean what happened was beyond their comprehension or beyond scientific explanation. Acknowledging we don’t know everything is a salutary exercise in humility, but saying the cause was luck doesn’t say anything at all. If something is a miracle by definition you aren’t going to see it under a microscope or be able to explain it scientifically. Calling it luck is like explaining birds migrating as instinct. It’s simply hiding our lack of understanding behind a scientific sounding word. It ends with explaining things away or deifying luck. No thanks.

So let’s give credit where credit’s due.

When my kids are graciously and miraculously spared I thank God for preserving them. We don’t have to understand it to be grateful for their providential protection. And it turns out that having things out of our control isn’t a bad thing when they’re in His hands.

Good thing too. Because our oldest will be driving soon.