Going to the mall turns out to be an educational experience!

At the mall today, I was intrigued to see these pushmobiles [for lack of a better word] that parents could hire to push their kids around in.

Children would sit inside car-shaped vehicles, which even had steering wheels that many a kid tried turning in an effort to direct themselves. However, the reality was clear: the parents were the ones who were making the cars move AND the ones in control over where they were directed! No matter how much the kids were pretending that they were in control, they weren't!

And I thought, what a cool illustration for life as we know it!

Firstly, God is the only reason we're 'moving' at all. As it says in Colossians 1:17 "In him, all things hold together." If God were to say to the world to stop at this moment, it would! God's power is mindblowing! e.g. Psalm 33:6-7
"By the word of the LORD were the heavens made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;
he puts the deep into storehouses."

Secondly, God is sovereign! Even when everything's going hunky dory and we think we're in control and that we're steering our own lives, it's only cause we might be 'steering' in the same direction as God is for that moment. And how comforting that even when our car seems to be going in the wrong direction, there's still Someone who's in control! And Someone who's got a much better view of what'll be best for us than we could ever imagine for ourselves! Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose".

As Paul joyfully concludes in Romans 8:31-32 "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"