Road Rage

Everyone who drives knows the frustration that wells up within you when somebody pulls out in front of you.  And it is even more frustrating when they insist on going twenty-five under the speed limit.  Going down Dorr when you get to King this happens all the time.  People pull out in front of you and then immediately turn, but because the could not wait an extra thirty seconds you have to slam on your brakes.  That frustrates me--especially when there are no cars behind me.

However,  I am not writing this to rant about selfish people who think that their time is so important they must jeopardize both your lives rather than stop or thirty seconds or so.  No, I am thinking more about the driver who gets mad about people who pull out in front of them.

Today as I was driving to work I had this happen to me several times.  And as I was silently fuming to myself that somebody had the audacity to pull out in front of me, a contradiction suddenly confronted me.  I was listening to one of my favorite bands (News Boys) and I was playing one of their best albums (Adoration).  The song that was playing is call Amazing Love.  I was singing the chorus which goes like this:

Amazing love,
How can it be
That You, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love,
I know it’s true.
It’s my joy to honor You,
In all I do, I honor You.

When somebody pulls in front of me, hits their brakes and then turns.  Immediately my anger is aroused.  After all, they caused damage to my brakes, gas millage, and slowed me down.  But then the words of this chorus rang in my head.  Is this attitude honoring to God?  And really was it that inconvenient?  Did I really lose any time? The answers to all these questions are obvious.   The more I started thinking about God's AMAZING Love the more I realized how foolish and selfish my anger was.  How many times have I pulled out in front of others and justified it?  Was it any less rude?  Yet I take it as a personal offense when somebody does it to me.  Jesus who was and is innocent of ALL sin died so that I could be forgiven.  While I want to have high words with a complete stranger because they made me hit my brakes.  I hope you all feel for me, cause I am really suffering.   

I think that there are at least two sins at the bottom of this.

1.)  Pride. That is, thinking more highly of ourselves then we ought.  They have no right to pullout in front of me, I am in a hurry, and obviously the world revolves around me.  Couldn't they tell?

2.)  Not remembering what Christ has done for us.  It is like the servant on being forgiven a huge debt then goes and throws another servant in jail for a small debt.    Having had such forgiveness, it is hubris and churlishness that we would let such small things makes us mad, and even worst that we would hold it against one another.