God is my co-pilot?

January 15th, 2009 a plane hit a flock of birds shortly after take off. The pilot needed to take the plane down as soon as possible in the safest way. So, as I am sure you all remember, he ditched the plane into the Hudson River. All the people on the plane survived. A pretty amazing story.
We talked about this today in Chapel. The Chaplain asked if anyone remembered that pilots name...almost everybody raised their hand and said his name...Chesley Sullenberger. Then he asked, does anybody know the name of the co-pilot? No one had a clue.







God is my co-pilot. Hmmm...if it's so great to have God as a co-pilot, then why is it that no ones knows the name of the co-pilot in the Hudson River crash? Why? I feel that this is one of the dummest Christian bumper stickers.Sure it's saying, God is with me as I travel. But it is also saying that God is second in command. We are putting God after what we want, saying that we come first. Is that what being a follower of Christ is all about? I don't think so. When Jesus was on earth and had his disciples, did he ask them what they wanted? No, he told them what they were going to do. He said follow me & told them where to go and what to do. Today as Christians, we put him second. We are supposed to be following him, but instead it seems like we have him following us, to be with us and protect us. Instead of going where he wants us to go, we go where we want and have him come with us. When we find ourselves doing things we want that we know may not be right, instead of turning away we try to seek approval to justify it. Instead of serving to others, we ask God to be there to serve to us. Instead of going to worship just to glorify God, we go to see what we can get out of it. Everything we do, we have to make a decision. We have two views telling us what we should do. We have God telling us what we know is right. On the other, our sinful self telling is what we want. In moments like this we sin. These moments when we desire something more than our Savior Jesus Christ. This needs to stop. To be the best Christian we can possibly be, we must make God our pilot and put his will first. Do what he tells us to do, not what we want.

"I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I am not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I am full of myself-after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. -Romans 7:14-16

This verse is proof that we can no longer keep God in the passenger seat, but let him take the wheel in our lives.

"When I have a family I want it to be so different than how mine was."

"When I have a family I want it to be so different than how mine was."

Today & other days, I have thought that statement to myself. If I sat and told you all the things that weren't perfect about my family it would take a while. Not saying that I have the worst family, because I know I don't, I just want for my future family to be better.
And I know, that there can never be a perfect family, I understand that life happens, but can't I have a dream?
Before I think about starting a family and having kids. I want to be prepared. I want to first have a home for my child or children to grow up in. Not that it's not a blessing to have an unplanned pregnancy, I want mine to be planned. I don't want to have to move my children around a lot, causing them to go from school to school.
I want to be stable, have good income. I want to be able to provide for all of my child's needs. And to be able to give them things they want. I don't want to spoil them, I just want them to have more than I did. When they get older, I want to be able to get them a car. Not an expensive one, and probably not their dream car, but something to start out with. I won't just give them the car, they will have responsibilities, and I would expect them to get a job or something like that. I don't want them to have to deal with relying on other people for rides like I still have to today.
As a mother, I want to be the someone that my child can go to when they have a problem. I know that they won't always want to come to me because that's just how it is sometimes. Personally, I have never really gone to my mom when I needed someone to talk to. It's weird because it seemed that people who barely knew my mom would just talk to her about anything in their lives. But I could never go to my mom like that, I am not sure why it was like that. I just never felt comfortable. I don't want my children to feel that way.
I want my family to have dinner together. My family never sat down at the table and ate together. Last Thanksgiving, I went to my room mates Aunt's house with her. We all sat together, talked, laughed, and enjoyed dinner and each others company. At first, to me it was really weird because I wasn't used to it, but afterwords I really loved it. It honestly was one of the best Thanksgivings I have ever had. So my goal will be to cook dinner and eat with my family almost every night of the week.
I want my family to actually do things together. There are two instances that I remember of my mom, dad, brother, & I all doing something together. They are my favorite memories. Those were the times when my family really seemed to be a family. It's sad that there were only two. So my goal, is to take more time to go do things together. Vacations and even simple things like going to the park and playing some game. Just take some quality time.
When my children accomplish things I want to show them how proud I am. When they have dreams I want to encourage them. Most importantly, I want them to know that I love them.
I don't want to get too busy doing other things, dealing with bad habbits, and being selfish to spend time with, provide for, and be there for my child when they need me.
Not only do I want to be the best mother I can, I want to be the best wife to my husband. I am not sure yet how to do that. Maybe because I don't have the best father figure in my life. But I will learn. I have some ideas from watching other people. I want to understand and meet his needs & make him most happy. I also want to make sure that I give him his space. Let him do his guy stuff. And when he comes home I don't want to ask him a billion questions about what he was doing and why. I want him to be someone I can confide in & trust, as well as someone he can confide in & trust. I want us to be so in love and to be a great example to our children.
There is probably so much more I could say about all this.
But this won't happen for years to come anyhow so I got some time.
And like I said in the beggining, I know that there can never be a perfect family, I understand that life happens, but can't I have a dream?