Where Is God in the Car of Your Life?

“So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” — 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV)

Imagine your life as a car. Who is driving? Who is in the passenger seat? And who, if we are honest, has been quietly moved to the boot?

It is a deceptively simple image, but it does something that abstract theology rarely manages. It forces specificity. Most of us would say, without hesitation, that God is important to us. Few of us would say, with equal honesty, exactly where God currently sits in the vehicle of our daily decisions. There is a wide gap between the God we say we worship and the God who actually has His hands on the wheel when a decision needs to be made on a Tuesday afternoon.

The first commandment is not a one-time confession. It is a position that must be continually reaffirmed. Loving God first is not a box you tick once at conversion and then never revisit. It is a seat assignment you check and recheck, because life has a persistent habit of quietly reshuffling the passengers. A new job offer arrives, and ambition slides into the driver’s seat while God moves over to consult on the route. A relationship deepens, and the approval of another person becomes the navigator, with God reduced to a voice in the back offering the occasional comment nobody is really listening to. None of these shifts happen with a dramatic announcement. They happen gradually, the way a car drifts off course on a long motorway when the driver’s attention wanders just slightly.

Paul gives us the corrective measure in 1 Corinthians 10:31: whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Notice the scope of that instruction. Not just the major decisions, the career change, the marriage, the relocation. Whatever you do. Eating. Drinking. The entirely mundane fabric of an ordinary day. If God is genuinely first, that priority should be detectable not only in the cathedral moments of life but in the grocery store, the inbox, the commute, the small talk. A throne that only shows up on Sundays is not really a throne. It is a guest appearance.

This is uncomfortable precisely because it is so practical. It would be easier if loving God first were primarily an emotional or intellectual exercise, something we could settle in a quiet moment of reflection and then move on from. But Paul’s instruction extends the test into the most ordinary corners of existence. How you spend a free hour. What you reach for when you are stressed. Who gets consulted first when a decision needs to be made. These are the actual coordinates of where God sits in the car, regardless of what we might claim on a survey about our spiritual priorities.

Today, walk through your actual schedule from yesterday, hour by hour if you can recall it. Not your ideal day. Your real one. At each point, ask honestly: was God in the driver’s seat, the passenger seat, or somewhere further back? You are not looking for guilt. You are looking for an honest map, because you cannot reposition someone whose current location you refuse to see clearly.

Prayer

Father, I want you in the driver’s seat of my actual life, not just my Sunday life. Show me, without flinching, where I have quietly moved you to the back. I confess the ordinary moments where you have not been first: my reactions, my spending, my free time, my private thoughts. Take the wheel again. I am not just inviting you along for the ride. I am giving you the road. In Jesus’ name, amen.