Patience While You Drive

Patience while you drive...

I started thinking about this the other day while I was driving with my little sister. We were just "do-daddlin" (a phrase I coined for just running errands or just bebopping around town) and I caught myself more than once comment on/about another person's driving. Either they didn't turn fast enough, or forgot to turn on their blinker, or were driving too slow in front of me, or too fast behind me...the list goes on...but as I was driving with my little sister in the seat next to me, I realized how much my speech definitely didn't match how I normally talk to my friends and family. 

Not that I was saying anything crazy, but just little comments started getting to me...little signs of frustration that I was showing to someone I didn't even know. Little things I said that if they heard me say they would not see Christ in my actions or my words. As my faith deepens and my actions and words take on more weight (as they should as a Christian) I started thinking how this would look different than the world we live in. In Hebrews 10, it talks about that we have been set apart as holy and in 1 Timothy 4, it says, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity." Set an example in speech....

In James 3:9-12, it gives warning on this exact thing... "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water." This hits home on so many levels, but one in particular, when we were in Israel, we learned a ton about springs...how they symbolize Living Water, how they provide life, and refresh and nourish...and when I landed on my identity statement as a "refreshing spring of truth..." I realized that the Lord has called me to be that not just when I'm "doing ministry" but also, when I'm in the car with my little sister driving to Kroger.

As I think back to all the times that my same tongue praised Jesus in the morning, then expressed so much frustration toward a person I didn't know...man, it's convicting to me. I don't know if it would hit home for you, but this has been on my heart the past few weeks, and I couldn't help but share. I am so much more aware now of how I respond in my car and on the road. Not that I'm in recovery as road-range addict, far from it, but I am learning and the Lord is teaching me how our little actions matter too. And our speech should always be pleasing and edifying because we were given a responsibility and a calling as people set apart. In 1 Peter 2:9, it states, "But you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." Yes. May I declare those praises at every moment, and may I live my life as people belonging to God. 

So here's to praying instead of letting my frustration get the best of me...it's just another picture how I am being refined and molded and I thought I'd share this morning. Hope this encourages you and the Lord uses it how He will in your life, and I'm thankful for the little lessons in life where I get to refocus my heart and thoughts and especially my words...