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“He must become greater; I must become less.” John 3:30 (NIV)

We’ve all seen the signs. We go to the doctor’s office and step to the check-in window. There is a sign telling us, “In the event someone is here ahead of you, please step back to give that person his privacy.”

Or we go to a fast food restaurant and pay for our order. There may be a sign instructing us to “Please step aside.” The reasoning behind this message is so they can serve those behind us faster.

In our personal lives, we have times when we have to step back from a situation confronting us. When we feel we need to do this, it can be because of health, either physical or emotional, issues.

Also, in our spiritual lives we have to let God go before us. We’ve all made the mistake of stepping ahead of, or running ahead of, the Lord. From our personal experiences, we all know the outcome-we mess things up.

Have you ever watched a choir perform? The director stands before the singers and keeps the different vocal sections on pitch and in time with the music. When the choir members practice, they learn the music and the tempo of the piece. When they perform, they follow the lead of the director.

Jesus Christ is the director of our lives. He keeps us in line with His plan for us and allows certain events to happen according to HIS timing.

In years gone by, a favorite mode of transportation was the train. They crisscrossed our United States; every town of any size had at least one train depot-my home town had two. Each train had a driver, called an engineer, these men worked on a rotating basis, one at a time.

The Lord is our all-time engineer; he drives the train of our lives. He knows when there is a mountain we have to climb or a valley we have to cross. He causes us to slow down and move with care when we have a curve coming at us.

As humans, we want to be ‘in charge’ of our lives. Someone once told me he was glad to be back on the ground after an airplane flight. His reasoning was when he was on terra firma; he was in control of his life.

As we mature in Christ, we learn that we can’t really have control over our lives, except what He allows. He gives us limits for our safety. When we ignore those boundaries, trouble enters our lives.

When we give our hearts to the Lord, we eventually learn He wants us to surrender our lives, as well. John Wesley tells us that even after we turn our hearts over to Jesus, a very small part of it is still carnal. He also tells us it is our job to not look to that part but to look to Jesus.

When we have circumstances that try to get the best of us and we take them to the Lord, we come away with a feeling of gratitude, with the knowledge that He bears our burden. We go to Him because we know that only He can take care of anything we give Him.

The concept of our becoming less visible in relationship to Jesus gives us pause. Most of our lives, we have had it drilled into us that we are the most important person-number one- in the scheme of things.

Then, we meet Jesus Christ. We don’t know how to react to His ways and His love. The longer we walk with Him the easier it becomes to let His plan for our lives encompass us. We do learn to step aside and to let go and let God.

"The Way" from Kevin Pauley

A World of One