Start the Car

Recently, I attended my husband’s 50th high school reunion. Reunions come packaged with all sorts of anticipation mixed with anxiety. It wasn’t my reunion, so I was looking forward as an observer, seeing a slice of Gary’s life I hadn’t seen yet.

At the Friday night mixer, a classmate in recognition rushed up to Gary. Within minutes, the stories poured out of her life. Her husband died two years earlier, a severe illness still plagued her, and she was ready to find love again. It was a flood of emotions and details. After begging that we sit together at dinner that night, she took off to engage with another group of classmates—a butterfly desperate for any nectar of compassion or attention she could extract. I looked at Gary and said, We need to keep a wide berth from this one.

We proceeded with the evening, talking to many classmates and successfully avoiding further interaction with this classmate. I was tired, and since the event was near our hotel, I excused myself and told Gary to stay as long as he liked, and I left the event.

At the elevator, I joined a group of three women who were also heading in the direction of our hotel. As only God would do, since these were all reunion women, I became the 4th woman in the group. The purpose became apparent that two of these gals were helping the third to get to her room. The third was the woman I was sure I wanted to stay far away from.

Since the two weren’t staying at our hotel but just heading to the parking garage, I became the assigned help to get my new friend safely back to her room. She was unsteady more; she let me know from the lingering effects of her disease and not from being drunk. She was upset at her perceived judgment for being drunk, but I am not sure she realized how vocal she was about drinking that night. I helped her find her room key, located her room number, and got her safely returned, all the while more sharing gushed forth.

As I returned to my room, I recalled a passage I read from my assigned text for spiritual direction earlier in the week.

The difference between the mechanical and relational approach (in prayer) could be pictured like this: Let’s say you’ve been taught how to get written directions from God to go any place you wanted to go. You could get in your car and hold these instructions in your hand, printed clearly in black and white. That’s what many people want from God: “Just tell me what to do!”

But Jesus will not have it! Jesus is relentlessly relational. He gets in the car with you, takes the instructions out of your hands, and grins as he tears them up. “Start the car!,” he says. 

You feel uneasy; you just want the instructions! You protest: “How will I know when to turn?:

He smiles and challenges you to risk trusting him: “I’ll tell you when to turn.Start the car!”

You protest again: “I need to know ahead of time!”

But Jesus replies, “Trust me. We’re going to stop at restaurants you’re going to love; we’re going to see beautiful places; we’re going to stop alongside the road and help people you can’t stand. It will be wonderful. Start the car.”

If you’re wise, you start the car’s engine and love This moment-by-moment life with God. God created us not to make us map reading, rote followers, but to be communicating, cooperating “friends” John 15:15.

Jan Johnson, When the Soul Listens, Nvapress 2017 pgs 6-7

As I sat with Jesus that night, I realized how little I knew about this classmate and how small my view was about her. God, in his mercy, didn’t allow me to decide which person to spend my time with at that reunion but instead invited me to trust his sense of direction. The next evening was astounding as Gary and I, invited by that classmate, sat at the same table and spent an evening together where I could watch and learn more about a person whom, in my shame, I would not have stopped by the road for. Nothing changed except my willingness to open myself to what God was doing. Watching it unfold for the evening was a beautiful and wonderful adventure.