LOST

So I was driving home from work the other day--in a hurry to get home, as usual--tired from the day, as usual, and pretty inpatient, also as usual. I am behind a blue minivan that is driving very slowly. The driver waits at the green light, looking both ways, looking again, and then has the passenger look both ways and look again--I yell, "the light is green, goofball"--(as if they can hear me). Finally the blue minivan signals right and heads down my street! Great--now I get to follow them even further. "I am never going to get home", I think in my best "drama queen" voice. I notice as they drive down my street, that they slow and speed up, slow and speed up, both the passenger and the driver looking and looking out the windows at the house numbers. "What are you? Lost?" I shout!

Almost immediately, I am saddened at my loss of patience for those so obviously lost! I began to wonder how that translates into my emotions toward those who are lost spiritually. If I get so upset with someone who can't find their way, simply because it makes me a few minutes later getting home---then just maybe I think my time is way too precious! Perhaps my values are skewed. I mean honestly folks, its not like I was late for an appointment to do emergency brain surgery on a woman pregnant with quadruplets who had been hit in the head by a taco bell sign blown down by the wind! I was in a hurry to get home, change clothes, feed my face and look at facebook! Pretty important stuff don't you think? I was ashamed and began thinking about my attitude and asking God to change it----until . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I noticed that the minivan had 15 county plates---ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Y'all--that's North Platte--that's where I live. They were not lost at all--they just acted like it--the nerve of some people. I felt my ire rising again and frustration oozing out of every pore. Then all of the sudden, the God of the universe, the One who saved me, loves me and whom I worship, reached down, slapped me upside the head and said,, "Indeed" (now in case I have to clarify, I didn't literally see His hand reach down from heaven and hear His voice, but I did feel a heavy feeling in my stomach and my heart sinking and my conscience began to hurt). I mean here I was getting all upset, being frustrated, judging someone else, and being indignant that everything just wasn't going my way. Oh what a sight I must have been--what a picture I must have painted. Why I bet I looked just like someone who was . . . .lost!

peace and prayers,

n