Reason #76

I’ve shared with you before that I spend my drive to work with the Lord. That is our time to talk, undistracted. A time for me to get my priorities straight. A time to spend in His presence before the hustle and bustle of the day begins. I drive the exact same route to work every morning so we have a good 20 minutes to spend together. This drive has become so routine that I think I could probably drive it with my eyes closed. I haven’t tried, and I won’t, but I bet I could. Most days, I remember backing out of my garage and the next thing I know, I’m pulling into the parking lot at work. I don’t even notice what is going on between my house and the bank because I see the same thing everyday. It’s routine.

So we set off to work this morning and as I continued down the loop (which is a 3-lane stretch of road that circles through Lubbock) traffic came to a halt. A wreck had occurred. I couldn’t see how bad this wreck was but I figured it must have been pretty serious since traffic was hardly moving. It took me about 10 minutes to go less than a half a mile. Now, I must admit to you that I suffer from a slight case of road rage and nothing irritates me more than having to sit in traffic. I finally got up to the wreck and saw that it wasn’t too serious. The reason traffic was hardly moving was because every car in the three lanes of traffic decided that they needed to slow down and examine the wreck. Yet another one of my pet peeves. Why is that we slow down to see a wreck? Are we hoping to witness some form of tragedy? Are we curious as to how it happened? Are we checking to see if it is someone we know? And here’s what I noticed. Everyone wanted to see but no one stopped to help. Each car slowed down, took a look and then sped up to continue to their destination. Maybe we stay in our cars because we know we can’t take care of the situation. Maybe we look and we desire to help, desire to be a part of something big, but we just don’t know how. We aren’t police officers or EMS workers. We’re just curious human beings. I’ll be honest, I took a look when I drove by and I just hoped that those involved were okay. I was also glad it wasn’t my car lying on its side with the windows broken out.

And so I sped back up and continued on to work. I was singing along to a new favorite Phil Wickham song and the lyrics say, “Take these feet, I know they stumble but you use the weak. You use the humble, so please use me. All I am is yours.” And as I prayed the words for myself, I came to a stop light. A leg-less man sat in a wheelchair at the corner. I have seen this man once before. He waits until the cars stop and then he wheels himself past each car in the intersection. Most people give him a smile and a wave, and I do the same thing. I have compassion for this man because I assume that he leads a difficult life. I wonder this man knows Jesus. I bet he feels rejected, unwanted, unimportant. I bet he feel desperate many days. And I look at him and I just don’t know what to do. An opportunity to help presents itself and I stumble…again. I am afraid to roll down my window. What if I can’t help him? What if he asks for something I don’t have? I feel like I can’t relate to him, so instead of trying, I do nothing. And so does everyone else. The light turns green and we all move forward. No one slowed down to look.

Isn’t this life though? We go through life and it becomes a routine. The only time we slow down is when we see a tragedy, something that warrants our attention, either in our own life or in the lives of others. And we want to take part in the big things. We want to help. We want to know the full story. And usually, we’re thankful that it is someone else’s story. Glad that we can watch it happen from the outside. What about the small things? The everyday things. Do we want to be a part of those, too? The things that aren’t “newsworthy,” the things that don’t require a hero, the things that anyone could do. Maybe we’ll just leave those for someone else.

So for the last 5 minutes of my drive, I begged for forgiveness. Forgiveness for being so selfish, for not noticing the little things or giving second though to them,  for only wanting to be a part of the big things, for only slowing down for the newsworthy things. Forgiveness for deciding how I want to be used rather than doing what He asks me to. Oh, how I am so undeserving of His forgiveness. Forgiveness He gives me everytime.

And I thought of Elijah. He looked for God in the earthquake and in the fire, but he didn’t find God in those two big things. Rather, he found him in smallest, quietest, unnoticeable thing… a gentle whisper.

Maybe it really is the small things that count.

#76 – Sermons on the way to work.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me…whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” – Matthew 25:40,45