Part of the impetus for this post was the fact that just this week I was cut off by a woman whose vehicle I have come to recognize because I have repeatedly observed her doing rude things to other drivers over a period of a couple of years. She works at a school just a couple of blocks away from my office and apparently gets to her job at about the same time I do every morning. There is no line she will not cross to save a even a nano-second during her commute. Weaving through traffic at an alarming rate of speed...getting onto an exit ramp to pass cars while traffic is stopped and then cutting back into traffic just before the ramp exits the interstate...illegally driving in the HOV lane...passing as many cars as she can in the left lane even though she has a right turn coming up, then cutting directly in front of another car, slamming on her brakes, and turning right -- this woman pulls out all the stops. Even though I have never met her and know nothing about her, I feel I can accurately assess her scum-filled character based on her driving alone.
Over the past couple of years, I have felt God tugging at my heart and convicting me about my anger toward other drivers. One of the catalysts for this was a short article I read by Andree Seu in World magazine entitled "Road Test." My initial reaction upon reading it was annoyance, but after letting it simmer in my mind and then re-reading it, I had to admit that Seu had a point. She humorously describes one of the very traffic situations that makes me see red, and challenges us to show charity to our neighbor:
I noticed today that the locals handle the [previously described] situation in one of two ways. There is the group that sticks to the right, either from some upper-story rectitude (see Francis Schaeffer), or fear of the Lord, or fear of drivers in the right lane who, having made 'the right choice,' are now in no mood to reward you for your selfishness in trying to muscle in. The other group, a minority (usually in cars vibrating visibly with deep bass sounds), speed [in the lane that is ending] past the idling do-gooders on their starboard side, and manage somehow to wedge into the narrowed artery.
My concern is for the innocent alien, the Philadelphia first-timer, the unsuspecting motorist from Montana.... It is well for us to remember the times when we have been out-of-towners, or had a goldfish bowl on the front seat. Or when a snake that earlier got loose from our son's shoebox suddenly started slithering out of the heating vent (which happened to me). Your fellow motorist has life complications you cannot even guess at. Could be that pregnant lady's water just broke; maybe that guy who forgot your 'wave' got a bad diagnosis today.I had to admit that many times there was no way I could know for sure whether the person cutting me off was doing so out of sheer maliciousness or whether there were extenuating circumstances. And I had to acknowledge that Christian charity necessitates that we believe the best about others and seek to extend grace to them whenever possible.
As I have thought more about the issue of how my faith applies to my driving habits, however, I have realized that God requires me to take a step beyond merely giving other drivers the benefit of the doubt. After all, Seu's point simply does not apply to the example of the woman I described in the second paragraph of this post. I know she is not an out-of-towner, and I know her behavior is habitual rather than simply the result of having a bad day. I cannot try to believe the best about her and assume extenuating circumstances when I know the worst is true about her from past experience.
A couple of years ago, my pastor preached a sermon that addressed the topic of anger in a way that I had never thought of before. While I don't recall the exact words he used, the gist of it was that love always lies at the root of anger. Anger is our response when something or someone we love is threatened or taken away. Therefore, one of the best ways to determine what is most important to us is to find out what makes us angry. This sermon challenged me to evaluate my road rage and forced me to acknowledge that my anger was due either to a sense of injustice (someone gaining an unfair advantage by using the HOV lane illegally or getting in a lane that was ending and then cutting in front of me and other drivers) or personal inconvenience (someone driving slow in the left lane). Of the two, the sense of injustice seemed to be the stronger one. It burned me up that I was sitting in a long line of barely moving traffic while other drivers were speeding by in an illegal or soon-to-be-ending lane. However, once I took the time to analyze this sense of injustice, I realized how ridiculous my "righteous" indignation really was. Of all the injustices occurring on a daily basis in my country and my world, the injustice of drivers cutting in front of me on the interstate, which was doing absolutely no harm to me other than adding a maximum of a couple of extra minutes to my commute time, had to be the least significant item on the list. My rage was wildly out of proportion to the offense, which revealed a startling level of selfishness and pride in my heart. The love that underlay the anger I was feeling was a petty love of self which demanded the right to be treated fairly, not to be inconvenienced, and to see punishment meted out against drivers who failed to meet my standards of uprightness. And of course, this love of self was resulting in serious anger that was not only capable of ruining my mood for the day but was also leading me to brood over traffic incidents for weeks.
James 1:19-20 has something pointed to say about anger:
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.Even God Himself, Who is perfectly holy and righteous in His anger, is described as being slow to anger many places in Scripture. How much more should we as Christians be slow to anger, since the overwhelming majority of the time our anger is not righteous and holy! I am convinced that most of the time our anger is not justified, and even in the relatively rare cases when we have good reason to be angry, that anger will often lead us into sin because we fail to control and channel it properly. It is precisely because our anger does not produce God's righteousness that Paul warns us so strongly against taking vengeance into our own hands in Romans 12:18-21.
If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.Even many non-Christians understand the detrimental effect that internalized anger has on a person. But for the Christian, sinful anger is far more than simply unhealthy; it dishonors God's name rather than glorifying it and projects a poor Christian witness to the world. It demonstrates an inability to trust God to right the wrongs committed against us and a failure to overcome evil with good.
So let's go back to the example of the rude driver from the second paragraph. I don't feel my Christian faith obligates me to feel any less disapproval for her rude actions or for the bad character that those actions reveal. But it does obligate me to let go of my anger toward her and to avoid any attempts to mete out vengeance or punishment for her "crimes." Of course, it calls on me to make every effort to demonstrate patience, courtesy, and respect toward her and others in my own driving rather than giving in to the temptation to respond "in kind." And since anger is difficult to let go of and old habits are difficult to break, it requires me to pray and seek God's help to live up to these requirements from His Word. I still have a long way to go in this area, but with God's help I hope to arrive at that point someday!
