Trust and Obedience

When I was fifteen and learning how to drive, my dad gave me countless opportunities to practice this skill. Being the oldest of eight children, I didn’t learn on a typical small vehicle, but instead tooled around in a fifteen-passenger van.

One evening, I was driving home from the grocery store; my dad was in the passenger seat and one of my brothers was buckled in behind me. We were climbing a hill in our neighborhood, heading towards an intersecting street that had a stop sign, giving us the right-of-way.

Just as we approached the intersection, my dad yelled.

“Stop,” he shouted, “stop the car!” I didn’t have time to ask or look – I threw my foot on the brake as hard and fast as I could. Immediately, a car flew in front of us with such speed that it seemed to be flying in air.

The driver never even slowed down. That car came through the intersection so fast that if my dad hadn’t seen it, our van would have been crushed. I remember sitting for a split second, shaking badly, before I could put my foot back on the gas to pull down the street and into our driveway. We walked inside and I fell crying into my mom’s arms.

What I realized, what my dad told me several times after, was that my quick obedience saved our lives. That thought terrified me. If I had flinched, had taken even one second to ask my dad why I needed to stop when we didn’t have the stop sign, things would have turned out different that night.

I was reminded of that story last week as Augie and I walked home from a friend’s house. We approached the street to cross; I slowed down with Henry in the stroller, but Augie sped up to run across the street. A car was flying around the corner, and I only had time to scream (loudly) for him to stop. I couldn’t even grab him.

Thankfully, in that moment, he quickly obeyed. And it saved his life. I thought about all the other moments throughout that day when I had given my boys multiple chances to obey me – a second and third chance to do what I said. I was reminded of the importance of training my boys to practice obedience the first time – and I realized how grateful I was that in this situation, Augie sensed the urgency in my voice and did what he needed to do.

When I think back to that moment in the car with my dad and my brother, I recognize it as a critical moment in my life. There I was, fifteen and possibly heading into tumultuous teenage years, and I was given an amazing gift. In that split second I saw the wisdom in trusting my dad, in trusting both of my parents. After that night, despite not always understanding their reasons, I was inclined to trust their judgment as a means of protecting me. Listening to my dad that night saved my life – and I rarely doubted his guidance after that.

Last week, I made that same point to Augie. And despite shaking for hours after that moment near the road, I was grateful for it. Like me, Augie was given a tangible example of why we should trust and obey our parents, even when we don’t quite understand them.

Questions and discussions are indeed import – I don’t want my boys to be mindless followers – but they must also understand there are times when they need to trust us, that we have their best interests at heart.

And I think in the midst of all this, God is gently reminding me of the same.