"Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?"

Prayer often functions in people's lives much like one of two items crucial to any journey: the steering wheel or the spare tire. The steering wheel is necessary for direction, control, and continuous engagement throughout the whole drive. It guides every turn and helps navigate obstacles and choices on the road. In contrast, the spare tire remains hidden away, largely forgotten, until something goes wrong. Only when there is a crisis, a flat tire, a problem that cannot be ignored, do most people remember its existence, relying on it solely in emergencies.

When Corrie Ten Boom asks whether prayer resembles a steering wheel or a spare tire in your life, the imagery is strikingly clear. For some, prayer is an everyday companion. They use it consistently to seek guidance, offer gratitude, and build a relationship with the divine. It centers them, shapes their decisions, and helps course-correct in small and significant ways, much like keeping a steady hand on the wheel. Prayer is woven into the fabric of their routine, not an accessory but an essential.

For others, prayer slips into the background, only called upon in moments of desperation when life's metaphorical tire blows out. When pain, fear, illness, or loss crash into ordinary routines, this is when prayer emerges, dusted off out of urgency rather than habit. It becomes a last resort rather than a primary mode of conversation or connection with faith.

The quote asks each of us to look honestly at our daily rhythms, to consider whether our spiritual lives are reactive or proactive. The implication is gentle yet profound: prayer is most transformative when it leads and shapes life, not only when it patches up crises. By making prayer a steering wheel, it is not just an emergency tool, but a reliable guide through every twist and turn life presents.