Having a commute to school this year has been both good and damaging to my spiritual life. More often lately I have been thinking about the parallels between driving and the spiritual journey of following Christ. I've been challenged to begin practicing a new spiritual discipline lately...the discipline of driving in the slow lane!
These are some of my thoughts after considering my time in the slow lane. Some points have very obvious spiritual implications and others are a little bit harder to catch, but I have been greatly challenged and humbled by my time on the road lately.
- I feel a tug from the plain and simple unpopularity of going the speed limit.
- When I do have an inclination to follow the rules of the road, I often find myself driving in the fast lane at the speed limit as some sort of exercise of judgment and control over the people who are speeding.
- I find myself often discontentedly changing lanes and constantly comparing myself with other cars - always measuring and caring who is getting there faster.
- Am I willing to let someone lead me and hold me accountable to go the speed limit?
- I have been most convicted about respecting other people who are driving. We have a relationship even if I am just the person in the car behind them whose lights are shining really bright because I'm following too closely. I am learning how to respect and protect honor as I follow.
- Part of my understanding has come from learning that laws are loving rules to keep me and others safe from what I would do if it were left to my own self-control or judgment or selfishness.
- I see my own desire to make people feel responsible/bad for inconveniencing me.
- Why do I waste resources to make pushy people happy?
- When I realize that I am speeding, I am okay with taking my foot off the gas to stop accelerating, but I always hesitate to put my foot on the break and actually slow down.
- I need to learn to let the laws and the cars/circumstances determine what is safe and what is good - not just one, and not just the other.
- My blood pressure rises a little when I get "stuck" behind a big rig - their slow accelerations and often inconvenient driving patterns slow me down and keep me from being as efficient of a driver as I could be.
Matthew 5:16
"In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."
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If I should live or die, let me be found pursuing this prize. The One that alone satisfies--the treasure of Jesus
About Me
- Marla
- I have abundant hope, and it rests fully in Jesus Christ.
1 comment:
I love that you have been having these revelations while driving. I too have had my eyes opened more and more to what my true nature holds when I'm driving. Especially in a mundane commute that I experience almost every day.
It's so convicting to be driving to work praying that the Lord will strengthen me for the day ahead and then interrupt that pray to yell at the guy who just cut me off.
I have been really working at following the traffic laws and fighting that pressure that you talk about from other people. It's scary to see how some people begin to drive when they encounter you driving appropriately.
I've also found that driving has a different kind of peace when I'm obeying the laws. When I got my first car, a 5.7 liter V8 Pontiac Trans Am, I loved accelerating fast and I was always having to watch out for CHP. I would get pulled over at red lights just for being young and in a fast car. I don't have that anxiety when I know I'm doing what's right. Boy does that ever apply to my walk with God. The difference between going to church on Sunday knowing that I have been walking with the Lord through out the week vs when I walk through the doors shouldering a weeks worth of unconfessed and unrepentant sins.
Thank you for posting this. It's great food for thought. May we all contemplate it as we drive to and fro.
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