Backseat Driver

Why is it that God is the last person we tend to seek help from when He should be the very first? I found that I am most susceptible to seeking Him when I’m at a low point in my life; when I’m desperate and vulnerable. It happens relatively quickly and it’s become something that’s beginning to really bother me because I know it’s wrong. When I ask for something, when I seek help, when I beg for mercy, it’s all when it’s convenient for me. Am I listening to Him? Am I hearing His plan for me? Am I demonstrating any degree of perseverance towards his trials in order to make me a better person?

It’s almost as if I’ve made God a backseat driver. I’ll control my life and where I go and what I do but when I’m lost, I’ll look to Him for help. I’ll ask for guidance, for navigational assistance. Whenever I am fearful or anxious and ask God for help, I feel bad. There’s this deeply embedded feeling of guilt that I can’t escape from because I know that I’m doing it again. That I’m only seeking Him because I need to right now. When things were fine earlier, He was the last thing on my mind. When things are good, I don’t tend to give him credit and when things do go badly, I blame him for making my life hard. Why are we like this?

I have yet to truly find an answer to this nagging feeling but I know without a doubt that feeling of remorse is a sign from Him. He wants me to feel this way and make an effort to change. To turn to Him, during times of rejoice and times of sorrow. To give Him glory, but to also give Him my burdens. As Jesus once said, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” If we truly believed this, we would have no trouble turning to him and leaving our anxieties and worries with Him, for He knows best and wouldn’t burden us with more than He knows we can bear.

I’m still trying my best to become merely a passenger in my life. To trust in the best driver, God himself, that where my destination is and the route we take to get there is nothing short but the best. It’s not easy entrusting your life to someone, but when that someone is all powerful, all knowing, and all seeing, why shouldn’t it be? We should all make steps towards submitting ourselves to God and letting him steer the path we walk on and should His plan for us align with our desires, so be it. But don’t only search for Him during the times it doesn’t and always find reasons to give Him praise instead. I guarantee you, you can find some even when you absolutely think otherwise.