Heavenly munchies

MY DRIVING EXPERIENCE

You start driving school today, my father said

Yayy, I was so excited, I was finally going to learn how to drive.

Voooommm, the driver dropped us (I and my brother) at driving school, I was disappointed, because I sincerely expected more, you know, a fleet of cars, different amateurs like me struggling to learn in an open space, a more standard school. But no it was substandard only two old rickety cars, crying for cleaning and maintance, and guess what, the actual space for learning, was at another place, a football field.

At some point I lost my excitement, I just wanted to go home and look for another school. But then I heard my father’s voice loud and clear in my head “if you like don’t learn how to drive I have tried my best, if you don’t learn now you would probably learn someday, when you don’t really have time”.  So I just reluctantly filled the form and was sort of now ready to learn how to drive.

We were now at the open field, my driving instructor had said all the theoretical things for introduction and then he said lets practicalize it. I stared at him for a while and then he brought me out of my deep thought by saying, “shall we’’ and I said “sure”. If only he knew the fear that had overshadowed my mind. The accident scenes, a lot of what ifs, (what if I run off the cliff, what if I hit the tree, what if I run into the football post) and then he said all the driving basics for starter and told me to move the car.

I began to move the car, slowly I navigated both left and right, at that moment I became excited I totally forgot that the car was an old dirty rickety car, I was just excited that I could move a car. I kept going round and round the field till he told me to stop. Before he could even say anything, I already asked when we would be meeting tomorrow.

For most of us in life you are just like me when I stepped into my driving school the first day. You have so many expectations from life. In shot you have planned your life in such a way that a little failure or set back means, you are a total failure or you can never make it again. Permit me to say we get carried away by our plans and expectation, that we totally forget God has better plans for us. We plan without the leading of the Holy Spirit (I’m Guilty as charged). And when things don’t work out we blame God. At that point you forget that in the beginning, you never allowed him have his way, if at all you showed him, you were not asking for his approval, instead you were just showing him to “let him know”. We forget that it does not always look like a fleet of cars in the beginning, we forget that sometimes, God takes us to a substandard place, so that He would show us what standard he wants, give us the wisdom to create the standard and then make us the celebrity. We are always carried away by the now, forgetting that even the finest precious stone was never beautiful in the beginning; it also went through a process.

So let’s imagine I actually worked away from the driving school, because it was below my expectation, I guess I would still be clueless about cars, and probably would not have learnt how to drive this summer. Because I doubt if I was ever going to look for a “better school” it was all an excuse and “procrastination”.

That’s how we miss our blessings, because we are not satisfied with the start off capital, I mean this old rickety car was to be used just to teach me. It was not my car, it was just to help me through the process, but I already looked down on it because I felt I was unable to do the job, i gave my verdict before its trial ( I can imagine how it would have felt if it was a human begin).  Unfortunately that’s what most of us do we shun our helper, because we “feel” they are below our league or it can’t just be. We are saturated with the thought of perfection. We expect something, so we need our expectation to be met. For cases like this “what ifs” are not permitted.  Its high time we walk by the leading of the holy spirit not by what we feel is right…….