I am not sure when and how it happened, but I have turned into a very impatient driver. Slow people irritate me, people who pull out in front of me irritate me, people who cut me off irritate me. Common words from my lips are "idiot, moron, I hate semis, etc". I have been trying to do better, and when I do mutter these words of frustration, they are usually followed by "sorry God".
Why is it when we ask for help in an area, it seems like we are given opportunities to practice what we prayed about? As I prayed yesterday morning before leaving work, I asked God to help me in this area. So of course God made sure no one irritated me on the way to work. Wrong. I had only gone one mile when it started. As I approached a 4-way stop, a semi turned towards me from the right, breezing right through the stop sign and forcing me to back up. That made me a tad bit upset, but I backed up and when there was room approached the stop sign again.....to find another semi breezing through the stop sign towards me, again forcing me to back up. I muttered "I hate semis" as I finally got up to the stop sign.
That wasn't the end of it. As I drove through town, a car pulled out in front of me... and went slow. We came to a red light where I needed to turn right and sat. After it turned green, he turned right.... at a light where you can turn right on red. Sigh.
The rest of the way to work was uneventful, but I remembered what I had prayed. It was like praying for patience, and then getting opportunities to put it into practice. I said a quick prayer asking God to forgive my impatience and started my work day in a better frame of mind.
This morning as I had my early devotions, I decided God must surely have a sense of humor. I am reading a book that I just reviewed "365 Pocket Morning Prayers", which is set up like a yearly devotional with a prayer for each day. If you are reading through it day by day, the prayer doesn't always apply. The one for today was "a prayer for sickness"..... and I am not sick, so I flipped to the next one. It was titled "A prayer about Example: watching how I drive." I won't post the whole devotional here, but it was something I could have written, and in fact applied completely to my prayer the day before. I had to smile as I realized this prayer was indeed tailored perfectly for me.
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