Big Rig, Little Know-How

In my younger days, I worked at a loading dock, unloading shipments and packages from trucks of all sizes. I spent most of the time on a forklift. Occasionally, I would have to move empty trucks out of the loading area and park them out of the way to make room for other trucks.

Most of our trucks were the size of large moving vans or UPS trucks. Very few big rigs. But all it takes is one big rig to learn a lesson. My boss stomped into the loading area one day and barked at me to back an eighteen-wheeler into one of the loading docks. It was a completely enclosed loading dock with little clearance on either side. Barely big enough for a big rig.

I had no experience, no training, and no business even trying. But that never stopped me before! I just thought, "I can back a boat, a camper, or a horse trailer with my pickup truck...what's the difference?"

There's a difference. Those big rigs aren't normal. They don't back up normal. I was used to backing up by craning my neck to the right and looking out of my pickup truck's rear window. You can't do that in a big rig. You have to use mirrors. Since mirrors are backwards, you have to do everything opposite of normal.

My boss watched for a good ten minutes until I got dangerously close to a concrete wall. Then we traded places. He backed it up and jumped out fifteen seconds later.

I wasted time, sweat, energy, and transmission metal trying to do something I had no business doing when someone who could do it much better was not in the driver's seat. Oh, how we do the same as followers of Christ!

We once drove our own lives before Christ came into the picture. While we ended up on the wrong roads, in ditches, and even causing some nasty wrecks here and there, we still managed. But the Christian life is no go-kart. It's a big rig. Once Christ enters our lives, it's time to move out of the driver's seat and let Jesus take control.

When we get behind the wheel, we grind gears, get jack-knifed, and wear out the gravel in a six-inch radius because we aren't qualified. We'll never get it straight and we'll eventually hit a wall.

The Christian life is not about keeping our eyes on the road. It's about keeping our focus on the King of the road of life. It was said of King Asa that he did that which was "good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God" (2 Chronicles 14:2).

We need right eyes. The litmus test for everything we say and do should be, "Is this good and right in the eyes of God?"

Ten-Four Good Buddy,
Perry Crisp