Mary's Blogs

Driving today from the bay to work was terrible.  I was tired just trying to get to work ON TIME.  But with all the cars driving back and forth, I kind of thought about how these cars seem to act the same way people do on a daily basis.  At times things were slow.  As much as I tried to stick to one lane, something about traffic influenced me to skip around from lane to lane, unsettled each time I slowed down again.  When I happened to cut a person off, they got angry and gave me the birdie.  When I moved to the next lane I got slowed down some more so the car in front purposefully slowed down to cause me to go slower.  The car just wasn’t willing to let me pass him up even though I was obviously being slowed down by him.  And when I exited I realized the lane took a while before actually merging; but because of it, certain cars were able to skip about 1/3 of the traffic before merging, keeping their distance and ignoring the need of the cars before them.  It’s because of this that I feel like driving is such an inconsiderate sport.

It’s always about competition on the freeway.  The more cars you pass, the faster you get to your destination.  No one has any time to relax and take a steady pace.  Every car is eager to pass the slow ones and leave their lanes if it means they get to “move ahead in the game;”  this is life at it’s finest.

In this life we waiver back and forth trying to force our way to the finish line.  We’re all about controlling our own destiny and being independent.  Something about making our own way through the traffic of life seems appealing to the average man.  No one wants to be slowed down by the traffic of others, and like the cars, we push aside as many as we can just to get a few inches closer to our destination, caring only for ourselves.  This act of doing for ourselves tends to motivate our actions as well; the more vicious we get, the happier we are that we’re closer to the goal.  Does this all sound TOO similar to you?  I think that if Jesus was here, He would’ve been the most considerate driver of life.

Jesus was the type to stop to help others.  I’m not sure what His stance on independence was but he was definitely FOR doing things in pairs.  The only person he ever shoved aside was Satan, and that is for obvious reasons.  Jesus didn’t work alone, He allowed the people around Him to be a part of what He was doing.  He brought people along with Him everywhere He went, except for when He spent personal time with His Father (God), like when he went to the mountain to pray.  He was considerate, and He showed a character of love for the poor who “fell behind”.  He always cared to make a difference, glorifying His father whenever He could.  Granted when it wasn’t His time, He would take a step back, but you get the idea.

I don’t know how much sense I made so far, but my point is that when this ongoing process of constantly being on the go consumes our soul, we become consumed ourselves.  We forget about the people around us and we lose the character of Jesus in loving others.  In the end all we care about is trying to satisfy our own need, forgetting about the needs of others.  We allow anger or bitterness to harbor within us, walking farther and farther away from the character that Jesus would want for us to have; all for the purpose of satisfying our own needs.

Sometimes we need to take a step back and consider our actions, our intentions, and the things that stir in our hearts whether good or bad.  Sometimes taking the time to stop and pray can be all it takes to really allow Jesus to take over for when we feel the desire to only satisfy our own “needs” instead of considering others in what we do.

When I was almost at Davis and I reached a merge lane, for some reason all the cars that needed to merge all got stuck for a brief moment, including my own.  No one wanted to let us in.  Then suddenly a car to the left of us decided to stop for a minute in order to let many of us through.  Not just one, but MANY.  I was amazed by how considerate that car was.  I realized that if everyone cared just as much for others as that one car did for all those who were stuck, God’s love would be so apparent.  Maybe it would be like the time that was written in the book of Acts when everyone gave up and shared all they had so no one was in need, because whatever they needed was available and shared amongst everyone.

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