Daily Verse | Proverbs 22:2
Rich and poor have this in common:
The Lord is the Maker of them all.

Happy Monday everyone!

I wonder how many of us get discouraged by our lack of faith at times. We wonder if God is really there, if He really loves us, if He will really provide for us. We know that we should trust Him, but our doubts and fears get the best of us and we try to control our circumstances, and then we feel guilty about not trusting Him and that creates tension inside of us that needs to be resolved somehow and suddenly we decide to do something drastic to prove to ourselves — and to God! — that we really do have faith.

An Ohio woman reportedly crashed her car into two other vehicles and a house after taking her hands of [sic] the wheel and letting God take control at a speed of 120 mph (190km/h), as a way to test her faith.

Authorities claim that the unnamed 31-year-old was driving a car with her daughter, aged 11, down the streets of Beachwood, Ohio, at around midnight on June 15. Security footage shows her car running a red light and eventually spin out of control, hit a utility pole and two other vehicles before stopping into a house. Luckily, neither the driver nor her child were seriously hurt, and the house they crashed into, which was empty at the time, suffered only minor damage. Upon questioning the driver about the accident, police officers were shocked to hear that she had been going through trials and tribulations lately, and simply decided to “let go and let God take the wheel”.

Make sure you click through and see the video of the car blazing through a red light and clipping another car that was in the intersection. It was an act of God’s mercy that prevented any serious injuries or death in the situation.

This is pop theology taken literally. While I don’t know where she got the idea, I can imagine that she had been listening to “Jesus Take the Wheel.”

She was driving last Friday on her way to Cincinnati on a snow white Christmas Eve
Going home to see her mama and her daddy with the baby in the backseat
Fifty miles to go, and she was running low on faith and gasoline
It’d been a long hard year
She had a lot on her mind, and she didn’t pay attention
She was going way too fast
Before she knew it she was spinning on a thin black sheet of glass
She saw both their lives flash before her eyes
She didn’t even have time to cry
She was so scared
She threw her hands up in the air

Jesus, take the wheel
Take it from my hands
‘Cause I can’t do this on my own
I’m letting go
So give me one more chance
And save me from this road I’m on
Jesus, take the wheel

Now, I don’t know anything other than what the report says. The woman had been “going through trials and tribulations,” having lost her job, and decided to take her hands off of the steering wheel to “test her faith” in God. She was obviously in doubt about whether she had enough faith to trust God to provide for her.

There’s a lot wrong with this scenario, starting with her stated purpose: to test her faith in God. It seems that if she literally put her physical life (and that of her daughter’s) in God’s hands, that would confirm to her and to God how full of faith she was — or was willing to be.

The danger here is that she was forcing God’s hand to act, as it were, putting Him to the test to see if He was faithful. And that’s a big no-no.

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Israel, we read that he “was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). “The tempter,” a.k.a. Satan, or Lucifer, came to Jesus and tempted him three times and each time, Jesus responded with scripture. The second temptation is relevant for the news we just read.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written,

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
— Matthew 4:5-7

Satan knows the scriptures as well or better than we do (see James 2:19), and he used a couple of verses from Psalm 91 to tempt Jesus. But Jesus responds with scripture to refuse what would amount to a manufactured crisis, not a crisis that came about naturally in the course of His life.

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” This is a reference to when the Israelites grumbled against Moses and against God when they were thirsty and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses named that place Massah and Meribah because “they tested the Lord saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?'” (Exodus 17:7).

That’s what this woman did in letting God “take the wheel.” Instead living in a relationship of trust in the midst of the circumstances she was in, she decided to manufacture a crisis in which she hoped God would approve of her faith and steer her to some kind of a safe conclusion. It did not, of course, work out that way.

The woman has now been charged with felony assault, endangering a child and driving under suspension, and a grand jury is expected to consider the case later this week. Local media reports that, despite the charges against her, the young mother continues to claim that she did the right thing by letting God take the wheel to see if it would put her on the ‘right path’

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Knowing that she was going through “trials and tribulations,” perhaps she could have read James 1:2-4.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Did you notice the reversal of the testing there? “The testing of your faith.” I think the poor woman missed that God was already testing her faith in the midst of the jobless situation she was in. That was the test she needed to pass, not the one she created for God to address.

You may not be going through anything severe right now, like the loss of a job, but where are you tempted to “test God”? When do you feel the tension mounting between your degree of faith and your life’s circumstances? Instead of trying to force God’s hand, stay the course and live in a trusting relationship with Him. Let Him (metaphorically!) “take the wheel” and provide for you in His time and in His way.