In a Ditch

I did some involuntary off-roading today. It snowed yesterday, and there was still some on the roads early this morning as I took my mother to the airport. After dropping her off, I found a little piece of the highway that had a considerable snow drift, couldn’t slow down in time, and found myself sliding out of control and into the only ditch in the Texas Panhandle. Of course, the moment I look up to the road I see the snow plows go by, clearing the way that I was once on and placing all that snow between me and my destination. However, with a few quick maneuvers I found myself back on the road in no time without any major damage done to myself or the car.

The interesting thing is that last night before bed my wife and I discussed the possibility of a snow-related accident and thought for a second about which car to take. My car, our clunker, is the one with four wheel drive. And if something were to happen to it, my heart would not be broken. However, it has no heat and was covered with snow and ice, and I didn’t want to have to dig it out at 5 am and then drive for two hours freezing to death.

So I drove my wife’s car.

The car we like.

The car we really don’t want to have bouncing around like a 2 ton pinball.

I made the convenient choice, the comfortable choice, but not the correct choice. We do this all the time in life. We hope that there are no consequences, and sometimes things work out just fine, but the thing about God is that He tells us how to make the correct choice so that no matter what happens we are going to be ok. Following the Word of God in our lives may not always be convenient, and it may not always be comfortable, but it will always be correct. And it may not mean that we will avoid all of life’s little disasters, but it does mean that when we find ourselves in the ditch we will know we did everything we could, and that we have Him there to pull us out and get us back on the road.