Letting Go of the Wheel - #10306

“Who’s going to drive?” That was the question Dave and I were debating. And after the debate was over, we got a pretty good laugh out of it. Dave was new on our staff in the New York area at the time, and soon after he arrived we got, shall we call it, an “enlightened” look at each other’s personality. We were headed up to this retreat center for a day of prayer and planning, and we got to the parking lot and said in unison, “Well, who’s going to drive?” It turned out we both wanted to.

As we talked about that during the trip, we started to analyze why we both hate to ride and why we both love to drive. I guess it’s often true of people in leadership; we like to be able to control where things are going, and how fast we’re going to get there. Well, of course, we ended up falling all over each other saying, “You drive,” “No, you drive,” “No, you drive.” You know what? That’s not such a bad idea.

I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Letting Go of the Wheel.”

Our word for today from the Word of God: we’re in Numbers 13:16 - a turning point in the life of one of God’s great leaders, Joshua. One reason He was great might be because of what happened on this particular day. “These are the names of the men Moses sent to explore the land” the Bible says. And then it just talks about one of them. “Moses gave Hoshea the name Joshua.” You might look at that and say, “This is sort of like a genealogy; it’s just a name thing, right? Why is that important? Hoshea…Joshua, who cares?

As you know, when God changes someone’s name in the Bible, it’s always important. You have to know what the words mean in order to understand the significance of it. Hoshea, which was his given name, means “deliverer.” The name that he was changed to, Joshua – the name by which we know him – means “salvation is from the Lord.” In essence, Joshua grew up with the name saying, “I deliver.” Moses said, “No, I want to change your name to “God delivers.”

I think Joshua realized after that that he was not the controller. He wasn’t meant to drive. That’s especially significant if you tend to be a controlling person. Are you the type of person who tries to control your children’s lives a little bit so they’ll do what you think they should? Or maybe you try to control your mate so he or she will do what you think they should. Or you try to control the people you work with or who work for you. Are you the kind of person who decides what the outcome should be, and then maybe you sort of manipulate whatever you have to in order to make that outcome happen?

Your attitude, because you are a leadership type person, is “It’s up to me. Hey, I’ve got to make it happen!” Aren’t you getting tired? Aren’t you worn out from trying to do God’s job? I’ve gotten that way. He changed Hoshea, “I have to deliver,” to Joshua, “the Lord delivers.” So Joshua would never forget who wins the battles. And that’s true of your battles now too.

You know, I’ve been driving at times when my wife could tell that I was probably about to fall asleep at the wheel no matter what I tried. And she’d just keep going, “You want me to drive? Would you let me drive?” Probably just before we became a National Safety Council statistic, I’d pull over and I would let her drive. And boy, I was asleep before we pulled away from the side of the road.

God’s been saying for a long time, “Let go of that wheel. If you keep driving you’re going to crash this thing. Would you let go of the wheel?” Maybe God’s saying you were never meant to drive. Why don’t you become Joshua - the Lord delivers? Let go of the wheel! Hear God saying, “Relax and leave the driving to Me!”