Confession: I stop at green lights.

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The other day I was driving down the road, came to an intersection and pushed on my breaks until I came to a complete stop. Normal right? I thought so too. I pulled out my phone, checked an email (maybe I shouldn’t admit that…to my credit, the car was stopped), and waited.

I soon came to realize what the car behind me already had. The light in front of me wasn’t red, nor had it been when I had stopped. It was as green. Green as grass. Kelly green. You get the picture.

If this was an anomaly, it wouldn’t be worth mentioning. However, if you have been in the car with me driving a handful of times, you probably have experienced a similar scenario, except the one with you in the car eliminates the obnoxious honk from another car and is replaced by you giving me a perplexed look and trying to tell me the light is green without hurting my feelings.

Lucky for you, I’m not very sensitive about my driving. I have come to grips with the fact that I am and probably always will be that driver that inspires a honk or unsolicited raise of the middle finger. I don’t mean to be, but reality is reality, and it’s time to embrace it.

Looking back, my drivers-ed instructor told me I would give other drivers road rage, not necessarily because I was driving badly, but that’s just the way it was. Please also note he was also from a country where women didn’t drive and he freely told me he wished he could impose those same restrictions on American drivers and that I was lucky he passed me on my driving test considering I am not a man. Obviously, I’m not sure I trust his opinion on everything, but apparently there was some validity in some things he said.

Red and green lights exist in so many parts of our lives. God gives us opportunities to serve him each and every day. He’s right there at each intersection showing us the way. We just have to take the steps to look, listen, and act. In a message at church a couple of weeks ago, the pastor said something that stood out to me. “Delayed obedience is disobedience.” 

Confession. I stop at green lights. I don’t always mean to, and I eventually press on the gas and move forward, but I still am guilty of stopping.

Thankfully, God has a lot more mercy than fellow drivers on the road. God never once has given me the finger, honked a horn at me, or whatever the God-like equivalent would be (I’m not sure what that is and don’t think I want to find out.)

Sometimes I take God’s mercy for granted. I choose to sit in the intersection, and not look up at the lights God is trying to show me. If I choose not to listen or look for the opportunities God is trying to give me, I somehow feel like they aren’t my responsibility. I stare at my phone, check my emails, live my life etc., so often never even glancing up to see what God blatantly places right in front of me. Its easy to say we are willing to move when God calls us to do something, but nearly impossible to follow through if we won’t even open our eyes to see where he is directing us.

I am so thankful God has placed so many wise people in the passenger seat throughout my life to give me that gentle nudge I need to see the obvious. Friends, family, mentors, and countless other people have played that role and let God use them to speak His wisdom into my life. I’m so thankful God doesn’t call us to drive through life alone.

As for you, thanks for sitting in my passenger seat. Thanks for pointing out the green lights God is giving me. Thanks for the encouragement and prayers. Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for not flipping me off.

And for all of you drivers out there on the Oklahoma roads, have a little mercy next time someone isn’t pressing on the gas when the light turns green. Chances are, the car horn on your Honda Civic probably isn’t nearly as intimidating as you think it is anyways :)