Yesterday I sent out an oldie but goodie Words for the Day. Many of my faithful subscribers who’ve been reading it for over a decade now requested that since I was in a reminiscing mood that I also re-send the one below.
This one stimulated a tremendous amount of interest both pro and con. When I originally published it, some who could relate wrote, “Right on bro’ – tell it like it is”. But make no mistake, this WFTD also stimulated some hate mail and in fact holds the record for the most cancelled subscriptions and nasty letters of all time. In fact one man wrote and asked me to remove all Christian related stickers from my car so as not to demean the good Christians in the world. (I wrote him back and told him that the good name of Christians was safe, and he, being the good Christian that he was, had nothing to worry about, because I didn’t have any Christian slogans on my car to remove.)
So, here goes nothing:
“When I was a very young boy my mother used to tell me that I had an angel that always sits on my left shoulder and a devil on my right, and they both were constantly trying to get me to do things their way. It seems that as I grew older the devil had his way with me pretty much all of the time. I became a Christian at age twenty four and things dramatically improved, but the devil still has his way with me right up until today. He does not have it as much as he did and when he does I regret it, (at least most of the time).
Every day we’re faced with decisions and we should try our best as Christians to model our lives after our role model Jesus Christ. I often ask myself the question, what would Jesus do in this situation? That is a good way to approach those tough decisions. Sometimes I don’t ask the question and just follow my natural desires and the following event is an example of not asking the question and just giving in to the devil. I have to admit that even to this day I do not regret this incident and some of you will probably unsubscribe when you read just how much of a cad I still am.
I’ve always disliked having cyclists riding their bicycles in traffic. I realize that we should not throw all cyclists in the same bucket, but in general they all seem to be discourteous, aggressive, and don’t seem to mind if they hold others up behind them. I’ve inched along behind them in heavy traffic trying to pass on more than one occasion. They seem oblivious to those around them and always seem to ride right down the middle of the jam packed streets in heavy traffic, making it impossible to pass. I find this to be very frustrating.
It was especially bad where I lived in downtown Atlanta. They dressed up in their cyclist suits consisting of bright jerseys, black stretch pants, and half helmets and hit the crowded streets with head down, pumping their way through the packed streets of downtown Atlanta completely oblivious to us poor working slobs who were just trying to get home after a hard day’s work.
One day I was driving home and after a particularly brutal fourteen hour day was exhausted. I’d been driving through a torrential downpour, or better, barely inching forward as the heavy bumper to bumper congested traffic was snarled to a stall. The heavy rainfall finally abated some, but it had caused water to flood the saturated streets and traffic was a mess. We were fighting our way forward literally a foot at a time for an interminable amount of time when finally the stalled traffic started to actually begin moving a little.
As I rounded the corner I saw the problem. A cyclist had been riding right down the middle of the busy street and holding up a line of cars two miles long and he’d finally moved over slightly and allowed some of the cars to pass. As I was riding along I was giving him a baleful, malevolent, glare and angrily thinking that he didn’t do this as a courtesy, as this would not be consistent with his cyclist creed; no, he did so because water was flooding the street and he didn’t want to ride through it.
As I approached him he moved to the sidewalk to avoid a huge puddle of water in the street. I saw my opening and without undo reflection I inexplicably veered my car over whereby it would go directly through the huge puddle of water. It threw a VERY heavy wall of water that was perhaps twenty feet high and one foot thick directly on him. I looked in the rear view mirror and it was a direct hit and I saw him veer, then wobble erratically as it knocked him off his bicycle. He was soaked from head to toe, his glasses were askew on his drenched face, and he actually had to stop pedaling to recover and clear the water from his face. He was sputtering and spitting water and looked mad as a wet hen.
When I saw this scene I started demonically and uncontrollably laughing at the top of my lungs, HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!!! And it continued on for a couple of more blocks, HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!!!
Revenge on the nerd, I derisively thought.
As I drove on I thought about this in relation to my spiritual walk and came to the conclusion that this behavior is definitely not the Christian attitude that Jesus desires for His children. I know this in my heart of hearts, but somehow I’m having a very difficult time being remorseful about this incident to this very day.
My spirit tells me that I should not have done this deed and further that I shouldn’t have enjoyed it so much either, but I’m not remorseful in the least and feel that not only did the cyclist get what he deserved for displaying typical cyclist inconsideration for other commuters, but that it was really excellent timing and steering on my part to achieve such a direct hit with a perfectly formed wall of water. It kind of reminded me of my water skiing days when I deftly formed such a spray with my slalom water ski.
It just goes to show that I have a very long way to go in order to achieve some semblance of kindness and Christian concern for my fellow man to include cyclists. In fact I’m thinking I might not ever get there.
The Bible teaches that we have all sinned and are unworthy to gain access to our Holy God. If it were not for His love for us and grace, we would die and rot away in our sins in hell. Jesus was completely devoid of sin and even though He was tempted in every way, He resisted and lived the perfect life without even one negative thought. He is the only one who ever accomplished this. All of the righteous men and women throughout the Bible, many of whom who walked and talked directly with God, fell short at one time or other and sinned.
I hate that He had to go through it, but I am exceedingly glad that Jesus did what He did on the cross. I’m also glad He is pure love and completely devoid of what makes this world mean and cold. Without His sacrifice, access to a holy and perfect loving God and all of the good that goes with it would be denied.”
So that is another oldie but goodie in the books on this fine Friday and I’m getting ready to walk out the door and go deer hunting. I had a guy write me the other day and say I was “mean and angry” and he was going to unsubscribe. Hmmm…Maybe he has a point. While on my deer stand I will reflect upon it some more, in-between eating oatmeal crème pies and scanning the woods for the big old buck.
Have a great weekend and go to church this Sunday!
Romans 3:11
There is no one righteous, not even one.