What makes people act the way they do when they get in a car.
If I bumped into you as we enter an elevator, I would politely say “excuse me” and that would be it. But if my car comes into your lane and “almost” touches yours, Look Out! How many times we read or see where someone was even beaten up or shot over road rage. Testifying before a House transportation subcommittee, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration officials estimated that two-thirds of the 42,000 highway deaths last year were related to aggressive driving, which appears to have joined drunk driving as a perilous trait of American culture.
Otherwise seemingly, quite, reserved people who turn violent when someone cuts them off in traffic. I’ve done it and so have you. Nothing irritates me more than sitting at a 4 way stop and the person to my right doesn’t know it’s their turn to go. And so there we sit, waiting for the other person to go first. I wonder if some folks ever did read the driving manual.
I’m sure all of us at one time or another have been rewarded with that certain hand gesture by someone who felt we offended them in traffic. I’ve even had young girls offer that one now and then. (Maybe I’m just a bad driver.) How could someone give such an offending gesture to someone they don’t even know?
Well, that’s really what I want to talk about. I only reminded you about your road rage to make a point. The fact is, people experience road rage, because they don’t know you. There is nothing personal about driving past someone on the road. Yours is only a very brief encounter. You will never see them again. They can say or do what they want to you and they will never have to face up to it. Your relationship has no value. And as a result, neither do you. Isn’t that sad?! (I’ll give you a little hint. If you need to get into a lane and no one will let you into it, simply roll the window down and give them a big smile and wave. Now they will let you in.) Try it.
As long as you are only another car on the road, you don’t matter. But when you become a face and a person with a smile, well that’s another story. They’ll stop the traffic in their lane to let you in. I’ll admit, I’m a horrible driver. Just ask my wife, she’ll tell you. But even she knows that I can cut into any lane of traffic I want, because of a smile and a wave.
I wonder though how many of us have this same mentality even when we get out of our cars. Hmm, let’s try a little test here. Let’s say you are on vacation and a few hundred miles out, you stop to have dinner at a restaurant. You know, at one of those places where they cook everything in lard. What happens if the service or food is bad? Do you tip her any way? Well you don’t have to do you?! After all, she doesn’t even know you. Well, you might even be able to get off a couple of “complaints” to her since she won’t see you in church this week.
But what if you were at the local diner that was just around the corner from your church? Why, you’d eat that mess and call it blessed. You would put up with bad service and even ask her to come to church on Sunday.
Why the contrast? Why is it easier to be nice to one than it is the other? It’s simple. In fact, it is the same principle as the road rage syndrome. Your relationship with that person does not have value. Or at least we think it doesn’t.
Recently, at our District Youth Convention, a young man came to the altar and gave his heart to the Lord as God filled him with the Holy Ghost. The amazing thing to me was that he was staying at the same hotel downtown as our youth. The purpose of his stay there was that he and some friends could have a place to party and get high all week. However, as he went in and out of the hotel that week, several of the youth were very kind to him. Now they didn’t have to be. But they were. And as a result, he asked them who they were. As they explained to him who they were and why they were all there, he became interested and one of them asked him to go with them to church that night. He did and got saved.
The phenomenal part of all that for me is that “someone” did not see their relationship with this man as passing. It was not temporal. It had value and so rather than blow him off, they spent time with him. And as a result of that, he is saved today! Did you read what I just said? They could have blown him off. They didn’t know him. He wouldn’t be coming to their church. They were hundreds of miles from home. But they showed him compassion anyway. Opps, there’s that word. I wonder how many precious, valuable people we could effect if we could loose the “road rage mentality”? I’ve got to be honest, I’ve seen how some “saved” folks act out in public and it bothers me. I’ve seen them bless everyone at church and then bite the waitress’s head off at the restaurant. I’ve got to be careful here, because I’ve been guilty of it too. But I wonder what greater impact we could have on this old world if we put the same value on people as our Lord did.
He suffered for billions of people who He never even met. Not even a chance encounter. When you look at His ministry, you see where time and again he could have blown people off, but He didn’t. “Old blind Bartimaeus, leave Jesus alone.” The Lord could have kept on walking, but he didn’t did He? “Zacchaeus, your not even worthy to speak to Him.” But Jesus valued His chance relationship with Zacchaeus so much, that he risked His reputation to invite himself to the man’s house for dinner.
What about that story of the Good Samaritan. Now there was a good chance to scoot on by and not get involved. It’s interesting that the religious people felt quite comfortable doing that. But the man who could have had a right to not help the beat up Jew, helped him.
People. I wonder if we value People. I wonder if I really love people. I say that I do, but I wonder if they matter to me as much as they matter to Jesus. Do I consider my chance encounter with them valueless? Or do I consider it my only chance to Love them?! I’ve been saying “you” a lot in this article, but really I’m preaching to myself.
I want to be effective in this world. I want to make a difference. I want my life to matter. I want with everything that is in me to reach people for Jesus. But how can I do it if I consider my encounter with them casual or non important.
I’ll leave you with a story. An old preacher was desiring to turn his church over to a younger man. So, he began working with his assistant, teaching him all he knew about the scripture and the people of the church. One day the old man said to the younger apprentice, “Let’s go preach to the people in town.” However before they preached in the square as the younger man thought they would, the old preacher said “Let’s get breakfast.” So they ate breakfast at the local diner. While they were there the elder Preacher joked with the people next to him and greeted the waitress with a warm handshake. He even told her she looked like she was working too hard. As they left there the elder man waved at John the barber as they walked past his shop. As they got ready to cross the street, a woman stopped them and asked the Pastor to remember to pray for her family as her husband was just diagnosed with cancer. As he stood there, he made arrangements with her to go to their house and pray with the whole family that night. After crossing the street, he stopped by to grab his suit from the cleaners and warmly greeted the person behind the counter. He was told his suit wouldn’t be ready until after the weekend, as their machine was broken. Disappointed, he smiled anyway and said, “Good, than I’ll get to see you Monday then.” and left. As they were walking back towards the church, the younger man asked the elder, “Weren’t we going to preach in the town?” To that the elder man replied, “We just did!”
