Get out of Neutral!
I recently had the unique privilege of teaching my grandson how to drive a stick shift. And I mean that in all sincerity and hilarity. His mom was not available and I was ... so he was stuck with "Grandma" as his instructor.
He was in good hands though. After all, I learned how to drive when I was fourteen years old, and I'm ... well, that was a long time ago.
We went to the local high school's parking lot, and after showing him the clutch and gas pedal "dance", all of the gears, and then driving a little bit to demonstrate the finesse of shifting, he was ready to dive in. Stellan had watched videos and had studied up on how to drive a stick shift.
Remember what it was like? Oh ... that first gear is a doozy!!
It all comes flooding back in and it cracks me up! The jerking and not knowing how to get it all to work together! But as I stood by my car and watched him go around and around the parking lot, shifting away, I felt great satisfaction that he was going to conquer the car and chug along into the future quite well.
Before taking it out on the road, Stellan wanted to master the hills though. I get that. The rollback is really scary ... especially into another car. So I got back in the car with him and talked him through the letting-his-feet-off-the-clutch-and-brake-while-applying-the-gas-in-just-the-right-amount process. He tried, sometimes with success and sometimes without. But there were so many things to remember all at once ... with that "rollback" fear lurking in his mind ... that it started to become really frustrating for him. The most difficult thing to remember was putting the car in first gear.
He was concentrating so hard on the pedals, he was forgetting that he needed to move forward. At one such point, all of a sudden I heard him yelling, "NEUTRAL!!!"
NEUTRAL! It can get us stuck in life, as well. Have you ever been there? I sure have! And it's frustrating! Unable to move forward ... afraid of going backward... and not quite able to figure out the gears and the pedals of life because they have gotten so overwhelming.
Sometimes it takes asking some friends to come alongside ... helping you sort through the details of the experience so you can move out of neutral and into first gear ... making it possible to move forward again. And for me, I cannot do it without a growing dependence upon the Lord of my life to lead the way.
"In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:6. He will get you moving ... out of NEUTRAL ... and in the right direction.
© 2023 Connie Caston McMaster All rights reserved
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