Move Right On Over, Lord!

 A few weeks ago, we were at my brother, Art’s helping to prepare some land for a new building.  Art needed me to follow him and Gary, who were taking the bulldozer to the construction site.  I proceeded to get into Art’s truck and was about ready to pull out when Art motioned from the dozer asking if I would bring his dog, Pearl with me.  I was delighted to have the opportunity for the ol’ red hound dog to ride along.

In order to reach the handle on the passenger’s door, I slid over onto the console, opened the door and called for Pearl.  She was so excited to be asked that she jumped right past me and plopped herself in front of the steering wheel!  What a scene!  Pearl is full of excitement, I’m stunned and Art is laughing!

How many times has the Lord asked me to do something and I’ve gotten so excited about the opportunity that I jumped ahead of Him and positioned myself in the “driver’s seat” ready to lead the way?  I can guarantee ya that I became an “expert” driver through the years, or so I thought.  My responses to His requests were typically something like this,

“Now that I understand what You want me to do, move right on over, Lord!

Don’t You worry Yourself any.

I can show You how to get there,

when we can expect to arrive

and

exactly who’s coming along for the ride!”

You would have thought that I’d have learned a valuable lesson the first time that I ended up on a “dead-end” road using this approach.  But, Nooo!  Not this girl!  Given any assignment, I was on it like ants on honey leaving God and those who were supposed to be along for the ride in the dust!  Being as determined and independent as I’ve been through the years, God had His work cut out for Him and I was in for a big surprise!

In order to help Pearl understand what I needed for her to do, I got out of the truck… on the passenger’s side, went around to and opened the door on the driver’s side and gently said, “Move over Pearl.”  Without hesitation she obeyed my command and, without further delays or obstacles, we were soon at our destination.  Unlike Pearl, I didn’t always move over quite so easily.  I was so determined to be faithful in fulfilling the assignment that I couldn’t even hear Father’ s voice when He told me it was time to pull over and let Him do the driving!

It wasn’t until I completely ran out of gas while driving for far too long on the same ol’ road that I took my hands off of the wheel and admitted, “Jesus, You’re gonna have to drive.  I’m not sure where I am.  Everyone else has bailed out and I have no idea how to get back home.”

I don’t ever want to be on that road again!  Thanks for the reminder, Pearl!

Whole-Heartedly,

Bonnie

P.S.  Please feel free to contact me with questions, thoughts, topics you’d like to ponder or to read past articles at: http://whole-heartedlife.blogspot.com/.  You may also contact me at:

             Bonnie Jaeckle

             In Search of the Whole-Hearted Life

             Diagonal Progress

             505 Jefferson St.

             Diagonal, IA 50845