A Time for Every Purpose

<sup>For a series of days, God used driving analogies to teach me more in this faith series I'd been studying.  Here is the first entry in that series.  More significantly, it seemed to be "testing the waters" for a larger ministry shift He'd be sending my way in the following year.  This way of "seeing" more than was there--it was a first brush with something that would prove a hallmark feature of my walk with God in the days to come.

Sept. 10
I was sitting at a stoplight the other day, waiting to turn left.  The straight lane in my direction was green, but the left turn lane was red.  No traffic was anywhere to be seen; but I sat at a red light, waiting.  The thought occurred to me that once upon a time, there were no special left turn lights.  You turned when it was reasonably safe.  But over time, people's definition of "reasonably safe" stretched a bit, accidents happened, and the left turn light came into being.  Now, I'm not the risky type, so I appreciate that light even though it means I sometimes sit ridiculously waiting at an empty intersection.  This "law of the light" struck me as a great allegory of spiritual faith and law parallels.  It struck me that the person who puts everyone else at risk recklessly is the whole reason the light law had to be established.  That one's self-absorption demands a law be put in place to make it possible for all drivers to move smoothly around each other. We'd need only minimal traffic laws if each driver's first thought were, "How can I keep everyone else safe as I get where I'm going."  The language Christ introduced toward embracing the law of love makes perfect sense in these terms. 
If all traffic laws disappeared, we'd all have the "freedom" to drive like maniacs, but not for very long.  We'd soon be killing each other--and ourselves.  Such is the meaning of the verse, "Do we then make void the law through faith?  Certainly not!  We establish the law." Romans 3:31  As Oswald Chambers says, "All I do ought to be founded in perfect oneness with Him, not out of a self-willed determination to be godly."  In these same analogous terms, why do I obey traffic laws?  Do I obey them out of pride that I've never had a moving violation ticket yet and don't intend to get one?  Is it because safe driving gives me better insurance rates?  Do I presume that my own safe driving puts me in a position that justifies criticism of less careful drivers?  So much to consider on a larger scale from the prompts of this analogy!

As I look back on these questions, I expect God is still working the hardest on that last one--that one regarding criticism of others.  I know it is a plague on the society I inhabit, but that is still no excuse for not allowing God to wake me up and take me away to a different place.  Interesting that just yesterday, my reading of Henry Scougal's The Life of God in the Soul of Man had me processing this:</sup>

Again, this grace [humility] is accompanied with a great deal of happiness and tranquility.  The proud and arrogant person is a trouble to all that converse with him, but most of all unto himself: every thing is enough to vex him; but scarce anything sufficient to content and please him.  He is ready to quarrel with anything that falls out; as if he himself were such a considerable person, that God Almighty should do every thing to gratify him, and all the creatures of heaven and earth should wait upon him, and obey his will...But the humble person hath the advantage when he is despised, that none can think more meanly of him than he doth of himself; and therefore he is not troubled at the matter, but can easily bear those reproaches which wound the other to the soul...True and genuine humility begetteth both a veneration and love among all wise and discerning persons, while pride defeateth its own design, and deprives a man of that honor it makes him pretend to.

 Such strong words!  Funny that just yesterday, I heard someone make a joke about women not being able to drive, and immediately my heart took offense.  It is true--to make a blanket condemnation of a group, a smug joke based on gender, this is wrong.  But it is also true that I should be humble enough to avoid the arrogant clenching in my own offended chest.  Some things are better left to a larger champion, one whose presence I will only realize if I take my eyes off myself and put them on Him.