“WHOSE HANDS ARE YOU IN?”

A few days ago, a news story was circulating that included a video of a woman fast asleep behind the wheel of her self-driving car. There was a big uproar about this. Just few days before that, a big story out of Phoenix was that there was going to be self-driving taxis to accommodate all the extra people in town for the Super Bowl and the Waste Management Open. This was being applauded. This leads to the question, how comfortable are you with putting your life in the hands of a computer?

Several years ago, a story was circulating that reported while addressing a crowd at COMDEX, a computer expo, Bill Gates said, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon." Of course, this did not sit well with General Motors. GM issued this response: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of ??????the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Yes, I know technology has advanced by leaps and bounds since this story made the rounds (I first saw it ten years ago). What I do know is, I still have computer issues and they often do things I don’t understand. I am not against technology at all, I am just not sure I want a computer controlling every aspect of my vehicle.

Technology has advanced society and made many tasks much simpler, however, something technology can never replace is our salvation. No matter how technologically advanced we become, God’s plan of salvation stays the same as it has always been. Salvation comes only by God’s grace through the death burial and resurrection of Jesus. When we obey the gospel, we put God in control, and unlike with human or computer driven cars, He will not make any mistakes.

So, whose hands are you in? Put yourself in God’s hands. He will guide your life at all times if you allow Him to!

Read Philippians 3:17-21