MY FAITH LIKE DRIVING A SEMI

 MY FAITH LIKE DRIVING A SEMI

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness” (Isaiah‬ 41:10‬).

 For the ones that don’t know what I do for a living, I will tell you. I drive a 48-foot semi, hauling sugar. Sitting behind the wheel on a semi truck feels nice because you can see so much more than when you’re in your car, you even feel taller. I do! I have driven in good and adverse weather: beautiful sunny days, foggy days, thundering days, and my favorite (just kidding) snowy days.

I enjoy driving when the roads are dry and the days are sunny. I usually start before sunrise; every day is different and beautiful. I love to see the twinkling stars in the early morning, the shooting stars and the color change in the sky; from orange to red burgundy. And that gorgeous blue sky! Every day is an art to remember. I always say to myself, “God really loves art.” 

When the days are like this; my driving goes smoothly, I like looking at the fields, towns, sky, nature. I am relaxed! I can turn my head in any direction and enjoy everything my eyes can see. That’s how it feels when everything is going great in our lives. We feel we have so much faith that sometimes we even forget to give God thanks for giving us another beautiful day. We forget to pray, to prepare for what may come next. We totally forget that God is the one that gave us that peaceful day. “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians‬ 5:18‬).

When I get alerts on my phone saying we are having dense fog; I say to myself, it will clear soon! Just a few hours to drive slow. It will be daylight soon! Dense fog to me, it’s like having my eyes closed and walking slowly feeling around so I won’t trip. I start my day by looking around to see how dense the fog is, and of course in town you don’t really see how dangerous it is until you hit the road. The roads in small towns are dark and with fog it is like having a curtain in the middle of the road; you want to open it but can’t. You switch your lights from dim to high beam and back to dim and it seems like nothing helps. On the four lane roads, I see vehicles go slow and others like they’re going to get their inheritance!  I often wonder, how can they do it if you can’t see well? I think that is how it is with faith. When we have problems or sickness some of us feel that we don’t have enough faith to keep us going, there’s something dividing us from God. We can’t see in front of us, there’s a dense fog that doesn’t let us see what’s coming up ahead. Our faith gets diminished. This is when Jesus said just a little bit of faith. That’s all He wants from us, a little bit of faith to keep us going. “And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew‬ 17:20‬).

Others go with faith so great that nothing can stop them, they believe there is someone bigger than them helping them get through anything. They are the ones that are in constant prayer, they’re closer to God. “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness” (Isaiah‬ 41:10‬).

Driving on stormy days isn't so fun for me. Days like those make me feel dreary. On those days, I wish I could sleep instead of work. When I see the start of lighting and where it ends, how it lights up the sky; I wonder, how did God do that and the purpose? I know there are studies but no one knows exactly what God was thinking when He made it. Beautiful and scary at the same time. Scary to me because I don’t know if I’ll get hit by lightning! Also, what if the storm will turn into a tornado and where would I go when there’s nothing around for shelter? When we have problems one after another and it seems that we’ll never see the sunshine or find shelter. We forget that God is there, we get impatient. We feel God has forgotten about us!

“The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, A refuge in times of trouble” (Psalm‬ 9:9‬).

“For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise” (Hebrews‬ 10:36)‬. 

In times of trouble it’s easy to forget that God has gotten us out of trouble in the past. We forget that God answers prayers. I’ll never stop saying,  "we have to be in constant prayer for those days."

My not so favorite weather to drive in: the snowy days. Driving a semi in that type of weather is the scariest for me. I can’t drive fast enough for other drivers. Don’t get me wrong I love snow but driving on it, not fun at all.

One day I got caught up in the middle of a snow storm, I almost cried. The snow was blowing, roads were slippery, cars next to me were trying to pass, others behind, my wiper blades were not working, my heater wasn’t blowing to clear my windshield. Everything was going wrong and I was so scared. I kept thinking “I wish someone could drive this for me, I can’t do it”, I wanted to give up. Everything was from bad to worse. My wiper blades finally broke so I had to pull over, my tears were coming. I called the shop and I didn’t get the answer I was expecting. I remember this person saying “I can’t do anything right now, I don’t know what to do”. That got me furious. I wanted to leave the truck and walk home but there was a blizzard so the smartest thing to do was wait. I called my husband and told him about the wiper blades and said “I’m quitting because these people don’t care about their workers”. Without me knowing he already had called the shop and they gave him the maintenance truck to come help me, he brought me new wiper blades, and he guided the way back. I made it safely.

By experience, this is how I feel when things go from bad to worse; problem after problem and even death, it seems that God has left us. We get mad at God. We ask Him, why me? We get very impatient and want the answer now. Like Peter, when he walked on water and lost his faith for a bit that little bit almost cost his life, if Jesus wouldn’t have been there he would have drowned. “And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” (Matthew‬ 14:29-31‬).

We lose faith easily when things don’t go how we expect them too. We need to be in constant prayers to prepare for these days, we need to seek God’s power to give us strength for the snowy days. “God is my strength and power: And he maketh my way perfect” (2 Samuel‬ 22:33‬).

We’ll always have trials in life but when that happens we shouldn’t forget that someone big is holding our hand to pull us through. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: But the LORD delivereth him out of them all” (Psalm‬ 34:19‬).

Remember, there’s a time for everything. That means that your trial will come to an end, just hold on to God.  “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes‬ 3:4‬).

Likhi Roush