Hazardous Conditions: What driving can teach us about life
This time of year roads can turn dangerous within hours, even minutes. Commutes can take ten times as long as the roads become slushy, icy, and snowy. On highways people drive normally in abnormal conditions and run off the road. It happens every winter, and yet we don’t seem to learn by it. Why is that?
Everyone else has the problem
I’ve yet to meet someone who openly claims they are terrible at driving. George Carlin once joked that everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot and anyone who drives faster than you is a maniac. Winter conditions intensify our feelings toward the so-called idiots and maniacs around us. As we pass by cars in the ditch we presume they were driven by incredibly stupid people. As we get passed by others we think they have death wishes. But when we are the ones doing the passing, we can’t wait to rid ourselves of all the idiots who were once in front of us driving much too slow. The problem is with everyone else, not us. Who likes to consider themselves part of the problem?
I didn’t plan for this
A lot of us keep razor-thin margins for reaching places at the right time. One of the shocks I had moving from a big city to a small town is how people arrive just before the start time or later to events. It didn’t take me long to find out why: there’s no traffic. Other than high school graduation, weddings, and funerals, people don’t show up early for anything. When we presume normalcy in our schedules, anything abnormal will throw us off. We get nervous. We get impatient. We take risks. And we treat others worse than we usually do. It’s not their fault. It’s ours. But who likes to blame themselves for their problems?
I’m smarter than you
I once worked several miles from my home with no obvious commute path that was the best one. There were an infinite combination of side streets and occasional freeways to get me from point A to B, and I tried dozens of them for variety’s sake alone. That was my norm. When hazardous weather comes not all options are created equal. Some roads are plowed and trampled on better than others. Some roads are more hilly, curvy, and dangerous than others. The smartest thing is to stick with the most basic course and have the patience to allow for all the extra people on the road with you to travel slowly with you together. But we like to outsmart them and outsmart ourselves. We rashly make poor decisions that can get us stuck on the wrong street, sliding toward a parked car, or colliding with someone else on the road. When hazards come the dumbest thing to do is make a rash decision that takes you into unfamiliar territory, but who likes to admit that their best idea is exactly the same as everyone else’s?
Hazards of Life
Some times life can become hazardous for us. A call into the boss’s office has us without work in only a couple of weeks’ time. A text from a loved one says, “we need to talk,” and the news isn’t good. The doctor’s office calls and wants to go over test results in-person. Months later your loved one is dead. In our fallen world there is no shortage of hazardous conditions we must navigate, even if we plan our lives by presuming normalcy. Unlike our vehicles, time has no reverse gear.
People tend to drive in hazardous conditions no differently than normal conditions, and that’s a problem. Different conditions call for different driving, and so it is with life. When a time of crisis, stress, and grief comes, stop and think about your response. The easy thing to do is merely react, blame everyone else, let our inward troubles seep into our outward lives, and make horrible decisions in the heat of the moment. A response calls for patience, discovering the role we have in the problem, and accepting that a solution (if there even can be one) will take some time and patience along the way. We cannot outsmart grief. There is no alternate root for lament. Anger will not lead us down the right path, but it may cause plenty more damage along its way.
Job Chapters 1 and 2 cover a span of days during which Job lost everything. His livelihood. His property. His children. Even his health. No one knew why. In fact, we the readers are told that Job lost everything for no reason at all. It was merely a test, like a crude science experiment. Instead of reacting, Job lamented in worship. His wife thought him to be a fool. She sarcastically told him to get on with blessing God and dying. Life seemed hopeless, but Job knew better.
The rest of the book plays out Job’s continued response, interaction with friends, and eventual resolution. In some ways he came off better at the end than before, but in other ways there were scars that would always remain. Children cannot be replaced. Health, though restored, is still compromised after a body is on the brink of death. And just like anyone in a car accident will tell you, it’s easy to be spooked the next time you get behind the wheel, as if a crash were immanent. Who knows how well Job lived after the fateful day he lost everything? Trust recovers slowly and in stages.
No matter what you are going through this winter, take the time to respond rather than react. When told to bless God and die, Job replied to his wife, “should we accept good from God and not trouble”? The conditions in our fallen world will not always be sunny and clear. The rains, sleet, ice, and snow will come. And when they do, be ready to respond.
Everyone else has the problem
I’ve yet to meet someone who openly claims they are terrible at driving. George Carlin once joked that everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot and anyone who drives faster than you is a maniac. Winter conditions intensify our feelings toward the so-called idiots and maniacs around us. As we pass by cars in the ditch we presume they were driven by incredibly stupid people. As we get passed by others we think they have death wishes. But when we are the ones doing the passing, we can’t wait to rid ourselves of all the idiots who were once in front of us driving much too slow. The problem is with everyone else, not us. Who likes to consider themselves part of the problem?
I didn’t plan for this
A lot of us keep razor-thin margins for reaching places at the right time. One of the shocks I had moving from a big city to a small town is how people arrive just before the start time or later to events. It didn’t take me long to find out why: there’s no traffic. Other than high school graduation, weddings, and funerals, people don’t show up early for anything. When we presume normalcy in our schedules, anything abnormal will throw us off. We get nervous. We get impatient. We take risks. And we treat others worse than we usually do. It’s not their fault. It’s ours. But who likes to blame themselves for their problems?
I’m smarter than you
I once worked several miles from my home with no obvious commute path that was the best one. There were an infinite combination of side streets and occasional freeways to get me from point A to B, and I tried dozens of them for variety’s sake alone. That was my norm. When hazardous weather comes not all options are created equal. Some roads are plowed and trampled on better than others. Some roads are more hilly, curvy, and dangerous than others. The smartest thing is to stick with the most basic course and have the patience to allow for all the extra people on the road with you to travel slowly with you together. But we like to outsmart them and outsmart ourselves. We rashly make poor decisions that can get us stuck on the wrong street, sliding toward a parked car, or colliding with someone else on the road. When hazards come the dumbest thing to do is make a rash decision that takes you into unfamiliar territory, but who likes to admit that their best idea is exactly the same as everyone else’s?
Hazards of Life
Some times life can become hazardous for us. A call into the boss’s office has us without work in only a couple of weeks’ time. A text from a loved one says, “we need to talk,” and the news isn’t good. The doctor’s office calls and wants to go over test results in-person. Months later your loved one is dead. In our fallen world there is no shortage of hazardous conditions we must navigate, even if we plan our lives by presuming normalcy. Unlike our vehicles, time has no reverse gear.
People tend to drive in hazardous conditions no differently than normal conditions, and that’s a problem. Different conditions call for different driving, and so it is with life. When a time of crisis, stress, and grief comes, stop and think about your response. The easy thing to do is merely react, blame everyone else, let our inward troubles seep into our outward lives, and make horrible decisions in the heat of the moment. A response calls for patience, discovering the role we have in the problem, and accepting that a solution (if there even can be one) will take some time and patience along the way. We cannot outsmart grief. There is no alternate root for lament. Anger will not lead us down the right path, but it may cause plenty more damage along its way.
Job Chapters 1 and 2 cover a span of days during which Job lost everything. His livelihood. His property. His children. Even his health. No one knew why. In fact, we the readers are told that Job lost everything for no reason at all. It was merely a test, like a crude science experiment. Instead of reacting, Job lamented in worship. His wife thought him to be a fool. She sarcastically told him to get on with blessing God and dying. Life seemed hopeless, but Job knew better.
The rest of the book plays out Job’s continued response, interaction with friends, and eventual resolution. In some ways he came off better at the end than before, but in other ways there were scars that would always remain. Children cannot be replaced. Health, though restored, is still compromised after a body is on the brink of death. And just like anyone in a car accident will tell you, it’s easy to be spooked the next time you get behind the wheel, as if a crash were immanent. Who knows how well Job lived after the fateful day he lost everything? Trust recovers slowly and in stages.
No matter what you are going through this winter, take the time to respond rather than react. When told to bless God and die, Job replied to his wife, “should we accept good from God and not trouble”? The conditions in our fallen world will not always be sunny and clear. The rains, sleet, ice, and snow will come. And when they do, be ready to respond.
No comments have been added yet.
