Growing in Grace

4 February

I have mentioned that through my first 50 years of life, I had attended a church which stressed an “experiential” or “crisis-experience” sanctification above basically everything else. I also mentioned that during my last approximately 20 or so years there, their teachings occasionally included the idea of “growing in grace” following sanctification.

As I was driving home from work tonight, I recalled one slightly damp Sabbath, when I was hurrying to pick up a friend on the way to synagogue. My route took me from the freeway onto an underpass. I was used to the route and thought nothing particular about it, having traveled it many times over my 22+ years here. It rains here 36 - 40 inches per year, so no big deal; after all, I’d driven the same underpass -- in pouring rain -- many times.

However, what had slipped my mind, in my hurried morning, was that I had become very unhappy with my tires. They were only about two years old, but something just wasn’t right about them. I had spoken to my husband about my frustration with tires that were not old, yet they simply were not responding right over the last couple months.

I slowed slightly as I took the underpass, but when I came to the area where I was to turn left with the road, I turned the wheel, but the car, to my horror and shock, went straight! I silently screamed to G-d, “Help me!” as the car jumped the curb, crossed the dirt, and jumped the other curb. It was flying!

There is absolutely NO control when a vehicle has taken flight!

I flew across the two lanes of merging underpass, barely touching pavement, heading straight for a cement barrier that was not likely to keep me from flying over it, down into the trees below.

Suddenly, inches from the cement barrier, as I tried to steer, the car whipped around in another 360 and headed back across two lanes, where cars were coming toward me at a fairly high speed. I tried to steer, and it whipped back again in a near-360, heading back for the cement barrier! Again, I pulled at the wheel, and the car whipped toward where I should have been going, but it still fish-tailed violently. Twice more, I tried to straighten it out, and finally, stopped, at least the car was pointing toward the right direction, and I was able to move into the flow of traffic.

Horrified, I realized that the tires had to go. Immediately! I picked up my friend, went to synagogue, thanking HaShem for His guidance and help that day. And I went home by another way.

I soon bought new tires. Perellis! Road-gripping, rain-handling, Perellis. New ones – not some that looked pretty but had sat in some warehouse passing their 6-year shelf-life – and the rain is not a major thought for me anymore.

As I was driving home from work tonight, I thought about how sometimes, we treat our relationship with the L-rd in the same way I had treated my old tires. When I began to be uncomfortable about them, rather than just taking care of the problem, I griped about it, wondered about it, thought about how the old tires should not have been in that condition, felt ripped off. . . .

But I didn’t do anything.

It took getting whipped and bounced around, looking over a precipice, and heading back toward fast-moving traffic to get me to the point of action, even though through that time, I kept remembering the words of one of the teachers at the synagogue. He said that when we drive a dangerous vehicle, we are in disobedience. Such a vehicle may as well be a large cannon with the fuse lit, pointed at our fellow human beings on the road, because it is just as deadly!

And sometimes in life, we are warned and warned. Something just isn’t right. We’re uncomfortable, but rather than just taking care of the problem, we gripe about it, wonder about it, think about it, and feel ripped off. And all the time, the solution is so simple: cooperate with the L-rd and let Him take care of the situation as we work to do our part and to inform ourselves! *

It is not about some long ago "experience" we once had, or some time in the past when we felt particularly blessed, that counts in living out today: it is being available before HaShem, to let him grow us in grace. How? He says to hear His voice – to stay were we can hear His voice. And if we have wandered a little, He hasn’t: He’s still in the same place He always was.

According to the Bible, then, we have to find an acceptable time to approach Him [Psalm 69:13; Zechariah 7]. Well, when is the acceptable time? When He has called, and we have quit playing games.

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* After I had already posted this, a pet peeve of mine came to mind: I used to hear people say that in such a situation, they let go of the wheel of the car, and miraculously, G-d guided it to a safe place. There is even a song on Christian radio that touts this idea, "Jesus take the wheel." Oh, I know the song is allegory, but it isn't common sense! Since when does the L-rd tell us, in the process of normal living, to stop thinking, to sit back and do nothing, and leave everything up to Him?


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Oh, yes. And when you buy tires, be sure you look to see how old they are before accepting them! Please visit this site.