CBC Worship Ministries: Devotional Blog

The story is told of a New Jersey State Trooper who responded to a terrible accident
on I295 where he discovered two dead people thrown from a totaled car.
As he looked upon the wreckage, a little
monkey came out of the brush and hopped around the crashed car.
The officer looked down at the monkey and said,
"Boy, how I wish you could talk."
The monkey looked up at the officer and shook his head up and down and
gave a little monkey yell.
"You can understand what I'm saying?" asked the officer.
Again, the monkey shook his head up and down and made his noises.
"Well, did you see this?"
"Yes," motioned the monkey.
"What happened?"
The monkey pretended to have a can in his hand and turned it up by his
mouth.
"They were drinking?" asked the officer.
"Yes," the monkey nodded.
"What else?"
The monkey pinched his fingers together and held them to his mouth.
"Oh, they were smoking pot?"
"Yes," motioned the monkey.
"What else, anything?"
The monkey motioned two people kissing.
"They were kissing too?" asked the astounded officer.
"Yes," nodded the monkey.
"Now wait just a minute. You're saying your owners were drinking,
smoking and kissing before they wrecked?"
"Yes!" the monkey motioned.
"And just what were you doing during all this?"
"Driving," motioned the monkey.

As silly as the story may be, we can draw some sobering parallels to the Christian
life in this tall tale. You see, as believers we sometimes allow ourselves to get
all caught up in things we shouldn't be involved in - whether it's an inappropriate
relationship, or a bad habit that we can't break, or a group of friends that are a
bad influence, or even a group of church people that are moving in the wrong direction.
The more we get involved in these activities that we know are bad for us, the more
we become blinded to the fact of who is guiding us. And before we know it we've
crashed and burned - destroying ourselves and perhaps others - because we weren't
paying attention to who was steering the crash cart.

Satan would like nothing more than to be your chauffeur. You see, he knows he
can drive the car and still walk away from the wreckage. Unscathed. (Well, at least
temporarily of course) The apostle Paul likened the prince of darkness to a roaring
lion . . . Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."
As you are going about your routine this week, stop and ask yourself, "Who's in the driver seat?"
And don't get fooled by the cute appearance of the monkey. . . he's a real devil!