I am a very bad driver and also a very unlucky one. My last three cars were totaled over a period of three years. One accident was 100% my fault; one was 100% the other person’s fault; and one had fault split 50-50. Needless to say, this has made me a Nervous Nellie at the wheel, especially in wintry weather. Or traffic. Or construction. Or after dark. Or on interstates. Or any time, really.
When I am forced to drive on the highway during unfavorable conditions, I choose the middle lane. They go too fast in the left-hand lane. Too much merging happens in the right-hand lane. But even the middle lane has its terrors: cars – and trucks! – on BOTH sides of me.
So I’ve developed a little rhyming mantra I chant to myself as I brave the highway: Just stay between the lines. That’s all you have to do. Just stay between the lines. That’s enough for you.
Those white-painted lines keep me from drifting into disaster. They serve as my anchor to keep my little automotive ship from tossing too treacherously in the turbulent asphalt sea. As Christians, our anchor is Jesus. Paul writes in Hebrews 6:19: “We have hope [in Christ] as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” Paul remained unflustered during shipwreck because he knew that God’s promise is that we need “have no anxiety about anything” (Philippians 4:6).
This Advent, and in this coming year, and always, I’m going to join Paul in rejoicing in the anchor of God’s assurances to us. I’m going to work hard on staying within those lines.
—Claudia Mills
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