In Other Words - Knowing and doing

Amy over at Proverbs 31 is hosting In Other Words this week and has chosen a neat little message to mediate on – Caution: Road slippery when wet!

The first day I was eligible to take Driver’s Training, I signed up. It didn’t matter that I’d be taking my behind the wheel in the middle of a long, cold and usually slippery Minnesota winter – I was going to get my license – and freedom – as soon as possible.

I breezed through the classroom portion of the class, memorizing when to get the oil checked, how far ahead of a corner to turn on my indicator signals, the speed limit in a hospital zone and what to do if I hit a patch of ice.Of course, I aced the test, after all, this driving thing was pretty clear-cut.

Right up until I got behind the wheel.

We were having a snowstorm. (In my mind it looks a lot like a blizzard, but if it had been an actual blizzard, I’m sure the class would have been cancelled. It wasn’t hockey, after all!) Anyway, it was snowing. And blowing. And it was cold, that peculiar kind of cold that makes exhaust turn into black ice the second it hits the pavement.

Before allowing me out onto the road, my instructor grilled me on what to do when – not if – WHEN I hit a patch of ice and the car started to skid: 

Calmly take my foot off the gas, calmly steer in the direction I want the car to go, calmly counter steer to regain control. 

Gas. 

Steer. 

Counter steer, he reminded me. 

And calm. Always remain calm.

I remember nodding. I remember being annoyed. After all, I knew how to do this. I had the perfect test results saying I knew how to do it right in my pocket!

I’d been driving maybe five minutes when it happened. I accelerated a little too much around an icy corner and the back end of the car started to fishtail, then skid. My mind told me to take my foot off the gas. To steer in the direction I wanted to go. To counter steer. To remain calm.

Panic was screaming something else!

We waited nearly 30 minutes for the tow truck to show up and pull us out of the snow drift. Thankfully, my instructor had been through it all before and didn’t say “I told you so” too many times.

He did, however, reassure me I’d get better with practice.  (I did - 30 years later, that was the only close encounter of the ditch kind I've ever had! Knock on wood!)

More importantly, my instructor reminded me that knowing isn't the same as doing, and theoretical isn't the same as practical. In order to be a good driver, he told me, I needed both.

I needed to know what to do, but I also needed to do it.

He was right, of course. And not only about driving on icy roads.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1:22 )