God's grace made manifest through the family (Part 2)

Car Rides.

One of the things I have come to love most about being home is riding in the car with the family. For the most part it's pretty normal. For the most part we do what normal families do while riding in the van (or as normal as we can get anyways...). We sing along with the songs that play on the radio. We take naps. We take ugly pictures of each other while taking naps...you know those ones where the person is all passed out with their mouth open. We play "I spy..." (that is a lie. we haven't done that since i was in high school...). We do normal things.

But car rides have never been normal in that my parents have always tried to use that time to teach us about God. For as long as I can remember we've always had at least one Johnny Mac sermon in the car and if the radio or some other CD wasn't playing it was a sermon. We even listened and still listen to sermons on the way to church!

When I was younger I really didn't appreciate this as much as I should have. Once the sermon went on my earphones went in or I would try and sleep (I was such a pagan child!). For some reason (aka God's grace) the headphones eventually came out and I started paying attention and so did my sisters. I've learned a lot from those car ride sermons. I remember listening to JMac's "Prodigal Son" over and over again in the car because our whole family was so amazed that it wasn't just a story of a father forgiving a son, but it was a parable of sin and shame that clearly presented the Gospel.

I think that's when my other favorite part about our car rides came about. Well, that's a lie. My parents tried to get us to talk about "deeper" things when we were younger by asking what we learned in Sunday school or by trying to teach us life lessons. For instance, I clearly remember one time we went to Burger King drive thru and it was when the Pocahontas cups were out. We were going to get 2 of them and Kaity and I were staking claim on them before we got to the last pick up window. Neither of us wanted the Governor Ratcliffe cup. It was ugly and he was the bad guy. So we were bickering in the backseat. I remember my mom turning around, telling us to stop and then saying that they "didn't belong to us." We knew what that meant. We didn't pay for them. They belonged to Mom or Dad. But then Mom told us they didn't belong to them either. I was so confused. What the heck? Who did they belong to then? Mom said they belonged to God as did everything else in the entire world.

Looking back that was a pretty crazy illustration....but hilarious.  

Anyways back to what I like about car rides with my family. Singing is fun. Listening to sermons is encouraging. But what is the best part for me is the conversations that we have. They get pretty deep and theological. It's weird. I don't know how it started. But it's fun, everyone in the family discusses. It gets pretty crazy too, since we're all pretty passionate debaters slash we can get hot headed. Except Dad, he is the only one who is gracious in his responses.

The last time I was home we were in the car talking about where Jesus was on Saturday or rather where His soul was. I don't know if we came up with a definitive answer yet. Mom thinks Jesus was in Hell because He had to endure the full wrath of God. Kaity thinks that the cross was sufficient or Christ would not have been able to say "It is finished." I think I side more with Kaity...but regardless, these are the kinds of things we talk about in the car and at home.

Dad likes to play Devil's advocate and throw these crazy questions at us that really challenge our notions of God and make us really think about what we believe instead of blindly believing. When we were going through Job he asked us if Job would have still seen God as sovereign and good if God had not restored all his possessions to him at the end of the book? Would we see God as sovereign had he not? Or when we were studying 1 John and looking at the creation of Creation--namely man, he asked us, "If Creation was just a manifestation of the Father's love for the Son and the Son's love for the Father, doesn't that just make it seem like humans were just created for fun?"

I think I've learned and grown more from those few conversations I've had with my family than from the many I've had with friends I see everyday. 

Car rides are the best.