Today my son passed his driving test. He is now no longer chained to his parents. A matter of fact, its pretty awesome to let him drive himself! But getting to the exam was a "God thing!" Alex has been practicing with my car (a Sable - medium size vehicle) instead of my wife's Ford Winstar mini van! Last night, we had just got home froma wedding and were discussing the whole driving test stuff when Alex said - "Dad, you have got to have your registration and proof of insurance ID, do you know where it is?" As all men, I answered confidently.... "its in the glove compartment!" Alex did not trust dear old Dad (his mother's influence) and so he went outside with gym shorts and no shoes to the Sable. When he returned he asked again about the registration, this time adding the phrase - where is the "valid" registration? And like all real men I answered, "your mom was supposed to take care of that??
See what happened, on December 13th Kris sent in the renew registration and check and we guess with the Christmas mail, it was alte. So on December 31st i began driving illegally. Alex was not so concerned that i could be pulled over for illegal registration but now he would have to take the test in Kris' small ship of a car! he began to freak out! Now as a parent you feel bad for your kids and you want to step in and bail them out. You don't want them to experience pain. you don't want them to fail. You want the to have it "better then you" and so you try to figure out how to come to their rescue. However, I also know that this is a terrific chance for Alex to rely on God and for God to show himself stronin Alex's behalf. As Alex went off to bed, i told him -- "look Buddy, God knew all about this situation....obviously this is a chance for you to trust him and rely on him and the fact is if you fail, it is for some purpose -- the quicker you accept that fact the better."
Well we woke up early and headed over to the test area for Alex to practice the all consuming "parallel parking" (can someone please tell me why in the world there is such an emphasis on a driving procedure that you probably use four times in your lifetime?). The first time he nailed it....he felt good about himself. The next three times he flubbed it bad...now he was panicking. But again this was a chance as a parent to allow him to trust God. It was test time and he wanted to pray before driving up to the examiner. I have never heard the kind of impeccatory petition like that in a long time. But the fact was Alex was humbly asking for help from his God -- pretty refreshing! He pulls up and sees a woman examiner (he was told by his friends -- they are the worst!). I left the vehicle and off he went. He passed.
We pulled around and got his picture taken and boldly displayed his license! When we got back in the car, we prayed again, this time it was by a young man who had just seen God not only answer his prayer but a god who stepped in and rescued him. he was grateful and rejoicing in THE LORD! Great lesson. For Dad it allowed me the opportunity NOT TO TRY TO SAVE HIM....that is what God is there to do, it is my job to remind my son that God is there for him -- just allow him to do His thing!