What Lies Beneath

Is it just me or are cases of road rage on the rise lately? I walk to work from the train station – a 30 minute journey – and for the entire trip the sound of honking is like a soundtrack on a continuous loop. If you dare hesitate a mere 2 milliseconds after the light turns green you best believe you’re getting honked at. There are those super malicious drivers who press on their horn for what feels like a good five minutes – and therein lies a problem because majority of the time the person being “yelled” at will retaliate. Before you know it, windows are rolled down, arms start flailing everywhere, one finger salutes are dished out like they’re on clearance sale, and loud expletives are bellowed and broadcast as far as the ear can hear.

I have witnessed cases where the two drivers start to intimidate each other by trying to hit each other with their cars. Unfortunately it doesn’t take too long before things escalate to violence. In fact as I was writing this article I saw a news clipping that a 58-year-old Canadian motorist was arrested for biting the nose of a pedestrian in a road rage incident – I mean of all the things to bite you choose a nose?? Eeew, gross! But even sadder is when lives are lost. Like the 3-year-old boy who was killed when an Arkansas man became enraged at the boy’s grandmother for driving too slowly and shot at the car. Or the 18-year-old college-bound woman who was recently shot in the head and killed in Pennsylvania after a road rage incident. What is happening to us? I don’t know if we’re just super stressed out and in a constant mad rush that patience has become a myth?

I have to confess that I do struggle with road rage sometimes. I tend to be lead-footed and a slow-moving driver can be an irritant. Have you noticed how slow drivers are slow to do everything except cut in front of you? It’s an amazing talent; impressive, really. When I’m enraged behind the wheel, I mostly just complain to myself quietly in the car because the one time I responded to someone who was being extremely abusive and belligerent, I ended up with a fist-print on the hood of my car. The burly man then stalked and followed me into a parking lot for round two of the harassment – where he kicked my car. Scary stuff!

Anyway, there was a period there where I was really struggling with impatience and anger behind the wheel. My frustration on the road frustrated me. So I prayed and said God, could you please help me overcome this road rage I’m experiencing a lot of lately? And at that point I sensed as though God was saying this to me in response: “Liz, your issue has less to do with the output and more to do with your input. You’re concerned about the symptoms when you really should be focusing on the root cause”. I was like huh?? But the more I thought about that statement, the more it made sense. I realized that around that time, I had been spending most of my free time, countless hours, playing the TriPeaks game on my computer; trying to better my elusive best score of 468,900. This was at the expense of spending time with God in prayer and reading the Bible. As a matter of fact, I have observed a pattern: in the periods I let my spiritual disciplines slide, my impatience and anger is at an all-time high and the tiniest of things gets under my skin. Conversely, when I prioritize God in my life, I do not struggle with those issues. Little old ladies sightseeing on the highway at a ‘breakneck’ speed of 60km/h do not bother me none.

Sometimes when we pray we say, oh Lord, please give me more patience… help me to be in control… make me more gentle…  help me to love more.  But what we are asking for in those instances is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Shouldn’t we be seeking the Holy Spirit instead? The one who produces said fruit in our lives? (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – Galatians 5:22-23).

No farmer has ever had to sit his corn seeds down and have a pep talk with them saying: “Ok corn seed, now remember you are corn, ok? The reason I planted you is because I need a corn harvest in 3 months – so please, whatever you do, silence the voices inside your head that might want to lure you into producing a carrot harvest. Repeat after me: ‘I have to yield a corn harvest for the farmer’….” That is a conversation that would never happen; corn seed produces a corn harvest. Period. In fact it is absolutely incapable of yielding anything else. Bad seed = bad crop. Good seed = good crop. Galatians 6:7-8: Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap destruction, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 

I know I singled out road rage but this applies to all manner of vices. So what has you frustrated about yourself? What traits about you are bugging you? What is it you so badly want to change but seem unable to – at least not consistently? Have you considered the possibility that the real issue might have more to do with the input and not so much with the output? Is how we are spending our time, and what we are exposing ourselves to, contributing towards making us more like Christ, or is it serving to strengthen our flesh?

I have come to learn that my prayer should be less to do with “Lord, help me to do better”, but rather more to do with “Lord, help me to yield more to Your lordship in my life and to the leading of Your Holy Spirit. How do we yield more? I believe we do so by: (1) making God a priority in our lives and spending meaningful time with Him; (2) keeping up with the spiritual disciplines of prayer and reading the Word (and applying it to our lives); and (3) living in obedience to His Word and to the promptings of His Holy Spirit.

Luke 9:23-24: Then [Jesus] said to them all: “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will save it.

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