Interactions with God #62
Massachusetts, as everyone who has ever lived there knows, has some of the most aggressive drivers in the country. And the term “aggressive”, may be an overly nice way to put it.
The quickest road between where I lived and the Sentry Insurance office in Woburn, MA was Route 38. It was a fairly straight road with tons of lights. In rush hour, 38 was really bad, like many of the other roads near Boston.
I took this route both to and from work. On the way back though, as I came into the city of Lowell, there was a particular light, that absolutely drove me crazy. It was the last light before a bridge that crossed the Merrimack River. My apartment was on the other side of the river. The reason this light drove me crazy was the way it was set up.
Route 38, up until that light had two lanes. Just before the light, the left lane became a left turn only lane. Because of this, the one lane that went straight through, would back up for a long way. To cheat, these “aggressive” drivers would take the left lane, hold it up, and when the light turned green nearly hit you to squeeze back into the right lane.
Now, I understand that there are people who got into that lane by mistake, those were kind of obvious…they used a turn signal. Even so, it would have created less of a mess for everyone if they would just turn and come back around. Of course that would add 15 to 20 minutes to their journey. My problem, was with the cheaters, who didn’t want to wait in the long line, that the rest were forced to deal with day after day. Like I said, this really bugged me!
On this one day in particular, a guy had done just that. He cheated! He took advantage of the left lanes movement and cut ahead of a huge number of people. To make matters worse, the dufus in front of me even let them in!!! AAAARRRGH!
When the light turned green, I followed as closely as I could. As soon as the one lane went back into two lanes, I intended to speed up and let that guy see my angry face. Yes, I said “angry face”. As a Christian, I wouldn’t do the finger thing, but I would definitely show them my angry face! Yea, I know, stupid. This is precisely where this next interaction happened and why.
As I am gripping the wheel like Speed Racer, screwing up my angry face so it looks, you know, REALLY angry. God speaks to my heart.
“So, what are you going to accomplish?”
I replied, “I am going to show this loser how mad I am!”
“And?”
It was then that I realized how stupid what I was about to do really was. This guy didn’t care about what people thought. He wasn’t going to be bothered by my stupid face. No, he would have most likely just flipped me off and laughed about it. While I would have stewed about it uselessly for days.
God showed me real quick, that my judgment is not required. He has that covered too.