I have this reoccurring dream: I am five-years-old in a car with a drunk man driving. The car is swerving up a mountain road. There is nothing I can do. Terror eats me alive, but never stops eating because I never die in this dream or get rescued from the vehicle.

The car won’t stop. It’s traveling for the long haul and nothing can interfere with the driver, my fate is in his hands, and he is bent on his destination. I have no idea what that destination is. I am merely a child along for the ride, screaming on the inside since I know the man will not tolerate screaming on the outside. The heart of this dream is that I love the man driving the car. He is my daddy and when he’s not drunk, he takes good care of me.

I rise from the dream and from my childhood and walk into life a shaky grownup. Nearly forty years separates me from that powerless, little girl in the car. I drive my own car where I choose to go. It seems I’m in control, but I know I’m not. God is the Daddy who now has all the power in my life. He does not get drunk, but neither is He predictable. And screaming out loud still seems out of the question. Who screams at God to stop the car anyway? Not good little Christian girls who love their Daddy.

And here it is: the gist of it: I’m tired of being a good little Christian girl. Tired of trying to earn Daddy’s love by not screaming in the car. And I don’t have to tell God this. He already knows. All that screaming on the inside is exhausting. All that trying to earn God’s love has worn me out.

And I’m on a mountain road, my only safety found in God, and sometimes God does not feel safe. Like my earthly daddy, sometimes God drives the car with wild determination. God has a destination in mind, is fired up to get there, and I’m screaming on the inside. Surrounded by a bunch of other Christians screaming on the inside. Trying to earn the Father’s love doing work for Him. Earn the love of a God many don’t really know, don’t really care to know, because knowing God is a mountain road. A steep, upward climb with the valley far below.

And here’s the rub. I can’t go back to the valley because the mountains are in me now. It’s like gills turning to lungs. I can’t breathe the valley air any longer. God has made me for the mountains and how do I escape this Daddy I love anyway?  

So I pray. I read the Bible. I talk to older Christians about their long lives with the Heavenly Father. The oldest believers all say the same thing: God is dependable. Faithful and true. Never, ever, not in a million years is the Heavenly Father like an earthly father. I can rise from this terrifying car dream relieved to know the truth: God is always and forever trustworthy.