Who's the Pilot?

Yesterday, I wrote about the Galatians 2:11-21 passage that was in my devotional reading. I want to comment on this passage again taking it from the perspective of what the author wrote in the devotional.  He began the devotional with mentioning the bumper sticker that says, "Jesus is my copilot."  He acknowledged that this bothers him because Jesus didn't come to be just a spiritual co pilot once in a while-he's meant to be in the drivers seat.

This is true.  Jesus is meant to be in the drivers seat leading and guiding us around.  We ask him that in our prayers- "Please lead and guide me, please direct my steps, please be the lamp unto my feet, etc...but yet when we get up off of our knees, we climb back into the drivers seat and look over at Jesus for the directions to where we are going.  Its kind of like this:  I walk my dog every day.  Lately, she has been grabbing a hold of the end of the leash near her mouth and holding it while we walk down the Board Walk.  It appears that she is taking me for the walk, rather than vice versa.  Admittedly, it is amusing...but is this how it's supposed to be?  I'm her Master.  I'm the one who should be guiding her not her guiding me- yet she walks in front of me leading me along.    The same is with our relationship with God.  We say that we want Him to be our Master and yet when we get down to the nitty gritty we take control over everything that we do. And, while we are theoretically tied to the Lord, we walk ahead of Him trying to lead the relationship.  This may be ok for a while but eventually, the leash is going to break- like it did this morning. 

I think that we don't always mean to control the relationship-it happens, it's been programed into us since we were old enough to know better.  Again, cultural influence says that we have to be in charge, in control, and have it all together but the reality is- from what I have read, that isn't what the Bible says.  It tells me that we are a bunch of messed up people in need of a Savior and without him we will get lost.  We even have moments where we give up control, but we always take it back at least a small part of it.  I tied the end of the broken leash around Missy's collar but left the hook part attached until we got home.  As we finished our walk, Missy took what was left of the leash attached to the hook and put it in her mouth- again, thinking that she was in control and taking me for the walk.  Do we not do that too?

We have to make the choice daily to follow the lead of our Master and to walk beside Him or behind Him but not in front of Him.  There are times when we should allow Him to walk ahead of us to prepare the way, but know clearly that like Jesus, He will not leave us to walk alone.This is easy said than done because what I am saying is that we essentially have to walk in Faith and that is not easy; but are you willing to at least try?