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For the first part of our trip here, we have been loaned a Škoda Fabia 4-door, 5 passenger car for our use.  If you are not a car enthusiast, you may never have heard of Škoda though it has been around for over 100 years.  It is a uniquely Czech company.  In its earliest years, the company made bicycles and motorized bikes, but since the early 1900s it has focused on cars.  Since the year 2000, Škoda has been a subsidiary of the German Volkswagon Group. Škoda are not currently sold in the US.

My preferred means of getting around in Český Těšín is walking.  The city center is a 30 minute walk from our house and I enjoy the fresh air and exercise.   There are times, however, when driving makes a lot of sense – when picking up lots of groceries, for instance.  Without going into my family’s eating habits, there have been plenty of opportunities for those trips.

The first thing I notice every time I get behind the wheel, is that there are three pedals on the floor instead of two.  In the Czech Republic, almost all cars have manual transmissions.  This means that I have needed to dust off my decades-old stick-shift skills.  They say it is like riding a bike – once you learn, you never forget.  That’s not quite true in my case, but now after about a week of driving, I feel proficient enough that shifting is starting to feel normal.

Czechs drive on the right side of the road, just as we do, so I don’t need to unlearn that driving habit, but there are plenty others that I need to watch out for.  Perhaps the largest one is the concept of right-of-way at unmarked intersections.  The Czech Republic has the concept of “priority roads” – those that always have the right-of-way, regardless of whether an intersection is marked.  Priority roads have occasional signs, but you need to remember the classification so that you can yield/not yield appropriately at each intersection.

What spiritual insights can I gather from driving here?  I think it is that almost everything that I do now: eating, walking, reading, speaking, and yes, driving, have all required time to learn.  Learning them in the first place took diligent, daily practice, and patience.  The same is also true about following Jesus. It takes regular practice, patience, and focus.  As Paul exhorts Timothy: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a worker who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15 (New American Standard Bible).

So, if you are new to “driving with Jesus”, don’t be discouraged.  Give yourself time and and with practice, it will start to feel normal.  If you have already been around the block a few times, don’t stop practicing.  Otherwise, you might find yourself grinding a few gears the next time you try to get out of park.

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