“And Lord, please make me a good worker today, and a good friend to my co-workers. Help me to serve them, and COME ON, MAN! YOU TOTALLY CUT ME OFF! AT LEAST USE YOUR BLINKER! IT’S COMMON COURTESY! HELLO! WE’RE TRYING TO RUN A SOCIETY HERE! … um, okay, God. Sorry. I totally forgot what I was talking about….”
Have you ever heard your prayers interrupted that way? Or is it just me?
If you drive a car anywhere in this world, you will be offended sometimes. If you drive in a sprawling city like Houston, you may be offended every time you get behind the wheel. And if, like me, you drive 80 miles a day in the city, you may begin and end each day struggling to maintain your own peace of mind.
Driving is tough. Road construction seems to never end. Every night someone passes me with no lights on. Many cities now have criminals in highly organized races that will fly past you at well over 120 miles an hour. Until recently, I saw racing every night. And ladders—there are ladders everywhere! I see ladders on the freeways at least once a week, often twisted and broken, having been hit by at least one car before flying into the breakdown lane. And the freeway speeds in Houston are fast enough to get us all killed—80 seems to be the average. If it’s raining, the average drops to 79.
But the worst of it, by far, is plain old selfishness. People cut you off. They never use the turn signal. They wait until the last minute, passing up long lines, then cut to the front of the line without warning. No turn signal. No hand wave. These people need to just GET OFF MY LAWN.
I’m inclined to favor JUSTICE. I want bad drivers punished. If not, my flesh tells me to be angry—that I have a RIGHT to be angry.
But anger does me no good. It upsets my day, increases my stress, and will have only a negative effect on my driving. Not only that, but often I am trying to pray. In the mornings, I keep the radio off and try to spend my commute talking to God. So it’s a bit odd to hear myself quietly asking God to bless my family, suddenly fussing at the guy who cut me off, then trying to resume my prayer. It feels a little ridiculous, doesn’t it? And it’s not the other guy who’s being ridiculous. It’s me. I need to grow up and grab onto the peace and patience available to me as a child of God. Lately I’ve adopted the oddly comical step of praying the slogan on signs all over Texas: “DRIVE FRIENDLY,” as in, “God, help me to drive friendly.”
But the word of God is infinitely more helpful than a grammatically challenged* slogan from the Texas Department of Transportation. Surely we could find over 100 verses applicable to keeping your cool behind the wheel. But here’s a good one for today:
“Bless those who mistreat you. Bless and do not curse” Romans 12:14.
God, remind me to bless the bad drivers. To pray for them. To speak blessings over them. Help me to actually hope that YOU will bless them, rather than my usual hope that they will be ticketed! Change my heart. Make me an instrument of Your Peace.
ΑΩ
- Some have argued the adverb form of ‘friendly’ is ‘friendlily.’
Household Words: 