This article has no Scripture. Not because it does not matter (it does), but because this issue should be so straight forward, it needs no out of context Scripture.
Consider this. Everyday, many of us with our inconsistencies, life pressures, and unpredictability have the opportunity to not only move but control our movement at incredible speed with a weight often fifteen times our own.
Driving a car has become part of our everyday norm. In our expanding cities and personal lives, cars have given us the luxury of living where we want without relying on public transport or walking, and to enjoy freedoms otherwise unknown to humanity since the dawn of creation.
The Danger of our Choices
But what happens when you place millions of unique individuals on a road at once? Congestion, traffic, unexpected delays, impatience. And with this congestion comes a plethora of responses. From indifference to distraction, apathy to road rage, our experiences and reactions to driving range vastly.
Consider the phenomenon of running late. Without a car, running late for church means you are simply late, period. You might walk a little faster, fidget on your bus seat, or simply give up on going to save face.
With a car, your options range from the morally grey to the illegal in order to rectify the predicament you find yourself in.
Cutting someone off, driving to the end of the merging lane, running the orange (or the red), speeding (coupled with a self-justified excuse), and dangerously overtaking every Sunday driver you encounter.
Driving has given us the opportunity for choice which not only reflects on our character, but can lead us to endanger the lives of those around us. Yet, and yet, driving is a daily phenomenon we barely think twice about.
Because of this, there are numerous ad campaigns to encourage safe driving: slow down, wait before you can safely overtake, expect the unexpected. And on the list goes.
What these campaigns overshadow are the sentiments which drive us to act these ways in the first place.
The anger before, not behind, the wheel
Retelling an experience he witnessed of road rage where another driver had made rude hand gestures, Rob Bell in his Nooma series video titled “Store” said this,
“Now I don’t have to know much about him to know that his anger had very little to do with me or the speed we were driving or traffic. That guy was angry long before he got in his car”.
Now I do not agree with Rob Bell on a lot of views he has held of late, but these words have stuck with me for the past decade because of the biblical truth they emanate.
This is the anger before the wheel. That which fuels road rage finds its source rooted deep in the innermost sin of our lives. Road rage has very little to do with what happens on the road and a lot to do with what is happening in the soul.
Who do you think you are?
If you spend barely ten minutes on YouTube watching road rage videos, you will find those who are most angry have the greatest estimation of themselves. Any slight, anything not according to their way is seen as an offense against them personally and must be responded to immediately.
It leads us to rhetorically whisper to the target of our angry “Who do you think you are?” as if, had they known who you were, they wouldn’t have insulted you in such a grandiose fashion as to cut you off.
‘Jesus, Take the Wheel’, a phrase popularised by Carrie Underwood’s 2005 song, is a call for Jesus to take the wheel of one’s life, to surrender control to Him.
In a world where we sit entitled behind multi-tonne vehicles travelling fast enough to kill one another, I want to simplify this idea. For Jesus to take the wheel is a reminder of how we behave in every aspect of our lives, including driving.
As we sit behind the wheel, may we not esteem ourselves more than we ought and forget the character we should behold as Christians when we are late for church.