I think you’re misreading the analogy, Bob. The driver is not God but someone who says he has received instructions from God. The passenger is any person listening to the driver who says that they know which way to go.
There are, as I’m sure you’d agree, delusional people in the world. People who say that they are acting in such a way because they are listening to what God tells them. Whether they have mental problems or you want to think that they have been deceived by the devil, they are undoubtedly wrong. One of these guys says he has been told to head north and wait for further instructions.
There are others who you might say are really acting on God’s instructions. One of these guys also says he has also been told to head north and wait for further instructions.
You’re standing there, wanting to get home, listening to both of these guys and you have absolutely no idea which guy will get you there. In fact, maybe they’re both wrong. How do you actually know without hoping that one of them is right and travelling along with him?
That trip may take a lifetime before you realise you’ve made a mistake.
I’ll give you a minor example from someone else’s personal experience. I’ve had a few of my own, but we won’t go there as I mention them too often. Although I’ve mentioned this one before as well.
I go to a Catholic psychiatrist a couple of times a year. It’s more of a chinwag these days, but I was on Prozac for depression for about 10 years. It helped, although I still get frustrated rather than depressed.
Anyway we both share certain spiritual experiences, which is helpful. If he was a purely secular psychiatrist, he’d probably try to tell me I imagined things, and then try to stick me on some more overpriced medication.
I was telling him about a “voice” which had spoken to me quite clearly on a couple of occasions, once when I was besotted with a young lady from the church I was going to, and the other time when I was moaning about my lack of “vocation” or, more realistically, career options.
On the first issue, and the local pastor had been trying to convince me to forget about the young lady, the voice simply cut right across my own cranky thoughts, and said, clear as a bell, “Bob!! Is (young lady)
SUITED to you??”, with distinct emphasis on “suited”. In other words, forget it. But God, or more likely my guardian angel, was at least considerate enough to give the answer in leading question form, rather than jump straight down my throat.
On the second issue, vocation, the voice this time just cut clear across my own complaints and said, “Bob!! (first names note…), What’s
WRONG with being a writer??”, with a distinct emphasis on “wrong”.
And they didn’t come from me. Once again God, or the guardian angel, didn’t jump down my throat, but merely posed a leading question right on the topic. Incidentally I’ve been dragging my feet on this one, mainly due to resentment. I wanted a trade.
So I told my psychiatrist about this, and he replied, “Well, that’s interesting. Did I tell you my story?” He hadn’t, so away he went. It seemed he’d been typing in his office, when a voice just out of the blue said “Go to Maclean!” And that was it - no context, no timing, no reason, nothing. Just “Go to Maclean!” He wasn’t even sure which Maclean it was referring to - Maclean in Northern New South Wales, North or South Maclean not far from where I live, or some other Maclean.
WIthout any further details, he just noted it. Now as a highly spiritual Catholic psychiatrist, and therefore in a pretty good position to know when something is spiritually or psychologically caused, he gets involved in “family healing masses” (read attached link on “healing the family tree” for a bit of background).
williamwilkie.com/spiritual.htm
About two weeks after the voice, he was in Lismore, NSW at a family healing mass. Afterwards an aboriginal woman came up to him and said, “I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself, or be a pest, or anything like that, but I seem to be getting told you should go to Maclean.”
Now if a strange woman came up to you, you’d probably want to know why you should go.
But he’d been primed by the voice in the office just two weeks before.
So he went. He ended up on some river island which was used as a temporary lockup for Aboriginal prisoners in the early days of settlement. He said there was some unfinished spiritual business (he’s also an honorary member of some aboriginal tribe, but he’s white).
Later however he said it seemed that the main purpose was to help the lady, as she had become Christian, and was getting a certain amount of harassment from her own people.
Now, as I pointed out in my previous post, God only gives us the next instruction. In the story I’ve just told you, all the psychiatrist was given was “Go to Maclean”. He had to wait for events to unfold to get the rest. And then he had to be obedient to the command. If he had refused, he would not have found out about the island “prison”, the unfinished spiritual business, or the the fact the lady needed his help.
And that’s how God works. Just one step at a time.
