Brake Check

The road stretches before you, flat and predictable. Your foot presses the accelerator, but instead of speeding up, you feel a catch. Then another. The brakes are catching.

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Jerk--Jerk--Jerk--

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Your speed slows and you pound the steering wheel in frustration. Stupid brakes! Everything was fine until the stupid brakes started ruining a perfectly good trip.

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You you curse them under your breath: Wish this car didn't even have brakes. I could slow myself down some other way if I wanted to. These brakes are in the way.

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Then you top a rise and your heart lurches. The road shoots straight down, curving out of sight at the bottom.
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The car begins to accelerate. You lift your foot from the accelerator and pound the brake.

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How do you feel about your brakes now?

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Most people see their lives as a straight and predictable path, with themselves in the driver's seat. They think they understand where they want to go in life and are the best judges of how to get there. They see God's moral laws as nuisances, impeding their progress to the Land of Unbridled Happiness.

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But life is not one long predictable highway. It is a series of ups and downs and scary turns and to attempt to navigate it without adequate boundaries in place is to place ourselves at the top of a cliff in a car with no brakes.

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We like boundaries when they refer to someone else. But when was the last time you thanked God for the moral and ethical boundaries He has written on your heart?

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"Thou shalt not..." should be considered a handy brake at the top of a hill. Heed it, and you will navigate the winding highway just find. Ignore it to your own peril.

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Those who boast, "Oh, I like excitement! Give me a hill with no brakes any time," are usually perched at the top, untried and healthy. The broken ones at the bottom, however, have a different story. They are far from the picture of "unbridled happiness" they imagined at the top of the hill.

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To believe that the God who created you would turn you loose on life with no brakes is as ridiculous as the idea of strapping your newborn baby in a car seat by himself and giving that car a shove down the mountain. If that sounds cruel, then so is the idea of a Creator turning his creation loose with no moral laws. No brakes.

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So how's your driving? Are you using your brakes?

They really do come in handy.

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