It’s Just a Car

It’s been a few days since the accident.

I’ve decided that I’m going to orient myself toward Christ. Even though I may not understand everything, I’m choosing to trust that He is orchestrating things beyond what I can currently see.

One of the passages I keep returning to is Matthew 6:26-33. Jesus is speaking directly to anxiety, survival, and the human tendency to live trapped in worry.

“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

“And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

The question hits differently after an accident.

I may not have a car right now. I may not know exactly how everything is going to work out. But I’m alive. I’m here. I’m writing this.

Worry cannot add a single hour to my life. But it can steal hours from the life I already have.

So instead of spiraling over every unknown, I’m choosing to trust God one day at a time.

I know life has worked out before. I’ve been through worse situations than this.

I keep reminding myself that it’s just a car. I don’t have to solve the entire future tonight.

Part of me wants to fast-forward a few months just to see the outcome. To know how the bills will get paid, whether I started the new job, and how all of this unfolds.

But that’s the tension of faith, isn’t it?

Wanting certainty while being asked to trust anyway.

Just because I’m choosing to follow Christ doesn’t mean all my doubts suddenly disappear. I still have concerns. I still wonder how things are going to work out.

But maybe faith is not the absence of worry.

Maybe it’s continuing forward even while worry is still talking.

It’s funny because I was given the impression that faith meant emotional certainty.

Like if I truly believed, then everything would automatically work out the way I wanted it to.

Looking back, I think that was a more transactional version of the Gospel.

Believe hard enough. Trust enough. Pray enough. Then God will smooth everything out.

But Jesus never promised a life free from uncertainty, suffering, or fear.

He spoke constantly to anxious, struggling people. People worried about survival, money, suffering, rejection, and tomorrow.

Faith, at least for me right now, is starting to look less like emotional certainty and more like orientation.

Continuing forward without needing total control of the outcome.

Right now, I need to pray. Not necessarily for God to give me X, but for peace, wisdom, self-control, and the ability to trust Him instead of being consumed by fear.

⁶ Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

A lot of people unknowingly pray like they’re negotiating with a cosmic slot machine. Pull the lever. Insert verse. Receive certainty. Then they collapse when reality remains reality.

So all that to say is I’m going to trust God today. I want more self-control, more peace, more humility, and more wisdom.

The car situation will work itself out one way or another. It’s still just a car.

Anyway, thanks for reading and walking with me through this.

~Barnaby