Whose hand is on the tiller . . . ?

Whose hand is on the tiller . . . ?

. . . and the sheets, for that matter?

A friend in a rough place recently shared about the importance of letting Jesus steer our boat, and how we frequently don't allow him to until we've steered ourselves into such dire straits that we've no other choice.  It caused me to reflect on my own experiences.  Of course, there are many aspects of our lives to which this analogy is applicable, but here I've taken some time to reflect on some pretty specific circumstances.

For me, letting Jesus steer meant allowing him to direct the complete healing of the brokenness that had led me to steer my boat so far astray in the first place. Long had I pleaded with him to heal me, never doubting that he had that power nor that he wanted me to be whole, yet growing increasingly frustrated with my pattern of failure. I didn't understand that I was to embrace a far different and more active role in his work of my healing than I could see. While I knew that God rarely does for us what he's calling us to do ourselves - or at least participate in - I didn't understand the nature of the help that he was providing for me, nor the nature of my need for it. He'd been calling me for years, with increasing clarity and urgency, to trust him enough to participate in therapeutic processes. These I resisted because they themselves seemed fraught with risks; eventually my very fears came to be fulfilled by my refusal to trust God, to submit control and allow him to guide me through the therapy that he'd been calling me into. Those fears' power to paralyze me, to keep my frozen grip upon the tiller and stubbornly keep steady my sails even as I progressed into greater peril, refused to fade until I ultimately had to contrast them against the storm I'd navigated myself and my family into.

Recognizing my old hurts, so that I could fully forgive those who had hurt me so deeply so long before, were but two important steps along my way to wholeness. They would not in themselves have completed God's desired plan for me. I also had to allow God (and a good therapist) to walk me through the full healing of those wounds, to recognize how they had formed me in unhealthy ways so that I could learn healthy ones in their stead, to be fully restored. God knew this all along, and had placed a stirring in my mind and heart that I should commit my vessel to the course he had in mind for me. Yet my fear was greater within me than my trust in the divine pilot, so I steered into other, far more perilous waters. I would have far less regret of it had I been the only soul in the boat. Yet he heals us of that guilt, too, as we allow him to navigate our craft, even from the danger into which we ourselves have navigated.

I'm not suggesting that God is steering anyone else onto a path similar to my own.  I'm just saying that, wherever he's leading you now, don't fear to follow.  As with Jonah, he has a way of reaching those who seek his will yet also resist it.