Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire? — Corrie ten Boom

Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?

Author: Corrie ten Boom

Insight: Most of us treat prayer like we treat our gym membership or flossing—something we know we should do more of, but we only really reach for it when things fall apart. We cruise through our days making decisions, running on assumptions, handling problems solo. Then life gets messy. The car breaks down. The diagnosis comes back. And suddenly we're frantically checking the trunk for prayer, hoping it's still in good condition. But the real insight here is recognizing the difference between using something as a backup plan versus making it central to how you actually navigate. A steering wheel guides every turn, every speed adjustment, every direction change. It's not for emergencies—it's for the whole journey. Prayer as a spare tire means you've already driven past where you needed help by the time you think to use it. The uncomfortable part is that making prayer your steering wheel requires something harder than desperation: it requires trust before the crisis hits. It means checking in before you're panicking, asking for direction when you think you know where you're going, believing that guidance matters even in mundane Tuesday decisions. That's the practice most of us skip—not because prayer doesn't work, but because admitting we need help steering is harder than we'd like to admit.