In his book, “The Grip of Grace,” Max Lucado tells the story about his commute to work and one particular spot that was always backed up. One day as the traffic was, once again, bumper to bumper, he saw a road that looked like it might be a shortcut. There were no cars on it, so he turned and drove down away from the traffic, made another turn and then, voila, he had avoided the logjam and was back on track. He was pretty proud of himself for finding this new route, amazed that others hadn’t discovered it yet. It became his regular routine, and one day when his wife was in the car with him, he couldn’t wait to show her just how much smarter he was than all the other commuters. “Watch this,” he said, and then revealed to her his new route. While assuming she’d be impressed with her smart husband, instead she said, “Do you know why no one else is using this route? You just drove the wrong way down a one-way street!” He protested, but the next time he was going to work, he noticed it – a sign he had never seen before: “Wrong way, Do Not Enter.” Well, now he had another problem. Before, he didn’t know that what he was doing was wrong. But now, as he was going to work the following day, stuck in traffic in the same spot, looking over at that same empty street, his mind and his conscience were at war with each other. He knew in his mind exactly what he should do, obey the law and stay in the traffic. But his heart was still whispering to him things like, “Well, you haven’t ever seen a cop on that road before…Surely there are people out there doing worse things than this…I’m heading to church to serve in ministry, surely that should give me a pass” and the like. He was experiencing a battle of the soul. Eventually his mind won out and he stayed in the traffic jam, but it was not without a struggle!

Ever been there? Trying to justify sin and rationalize your way into or out of something? The struggle is real! I think about how the Apostle Paul puts it in Romans 7:18-25:

“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Yes, Jesus is the only way to be set free from this life of sin. Jesus occupying the throne of our lives, Jesus guiding our decisions and conversations, Jesus providing wisdom to walk the path of life and grace to bring us back when we fail. All of us have these Max Lucado moments throughout our day.  So, the next time you’re in the middle of one, make sure, as Carrie Underwood famously tells us, that Jesus takes the wheel!