Do you remember when you first began learning to drive a car? You had a lot of things to keep track of, didn’t you? You had to check the speedometer and the gas gauge and the rear view mirror and the road ahead, and the directional signs alongside the road and the other cars on the road, and listen to whatever instructions your driving teacher was trying to give you!

It’s possible to become so involved with all of the mechanics of the process of driving that you forget the most important rule: watch where you are going! When you don’t watch where you are going, you don’t go where you intended to go.

When I was trying to teach one of my daughters to drive, we went around a corner, and ended up on the lawn of a church. It wasn’t exactly the route I had planned for us to take! But we backed up and tried it again, and the day came when she could drive well enough to get her own driver’s license. But one thing is certain: it takes more than a driver’s license to insure safe driving.

If you become preoccupied with the passing scenery, the other cars on the road, or the various items on the dashboard, it doesn’t take long to go off the road. If you look at yourself in the rear view mirror and focus your attention there instead of on where you are going, you’ll have trouble. | Sometimes when we become Christians, we have the same problems as a new driver. We get involved in the mechanics. We keep looking at ourselves to see how we’re doing.

We look at other people to see how they’re doing. The passing scenery, the pleasures or trials of life here on this earth, divert our attention. And it isn’t long until we find ourselves in the ditch, spiritually. It is a law that whenever we take our eyes off Christ and focus on anything else, we lose our way.

Steps to Christ tells us,

“When the mind dwells upon self, it is turned away from Christ, the source of strength and life. Hence it is Satan’s constant effort to keep the attention diverted from the Saviour and thus prevent the union and communion of the soul with Christ.” – Page 71.

Any time the devil succeeds in getting us to look away from Christ, it is inevitable that we fall and fail and sin. Our attention must be on God, and as long as we look to Him we are secure. But when we look to ourselves instead, we have placed ourselves where God should be. And

“when man places himself where God should be, he is just where Satan is pleased to have him.” – Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, January 3, 1899.

Peter discovered this principle in a dramatic way that night on the lake. It’s recorded in Matthew 14:28-30.

Jesus had fed the 5,000 that day, and heaven had seemed to come down to earth.

But just when it looked like the new kingdom could be established on the spot, Jesus sent the disciples away across the lake, more unhappy with Him than they had ever been.

A storm came up, and the disciples feared for their very lives. But Jesus came to them, walking across the water, and Peter said,

“Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And He said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.”

So long as he kept his eyes fixed upon Christ, he was secure. But when he looked instead at the waves and back to the boat to make sure the other disciples were noticing him, he went down.

In the last chapter I talked about the two kinds of abiding, the abiding daily relationship versus the moment-by-moment abiding dependence. When we take our eyes off of Christ, it is the moment-by-moment abiding dependence that is broken– not the abiding daily relationship. When we fall and fail and sin, we must come to Christ for repentance and forgiveness.

But our eternal destiny is not decided by the momentary lapse.

“If one who daily communes with God [the abiding daily relationship] errs from the path, if he turns a moment from looking steadfastly unto Jesus [the moment-by-moment abiding dependence] it is not because he sins willfully; for when he sees his mistake, he turns again, and fastens his eyes upon Jesus, and the fact that he has erred, does not make him less dear to the heart of God.” – Ellen G. White, Review and Herald May 12, 1896.