Words from WW Blog

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                               August 4, 2016

Yesterday I was at a stoplight waiting to turn right onto a six lane road in our area. The green arrow to turn left was lit for the vehicles coming towards me. I waited for four cars to make the turn, and then the green light appeared for me. I did not see the young lady who was beginning to cross the street. She noticed that I was beginning to turn and hesitated out of nervousness. I should have just stopped at that point, but, instead, I swung wide around her to the far lane and proceeded.

My thought at that moment was some guilt and shame at causing her a moment of questioning her safety, and my embarrassment at seeming to be in a rush to go…nowhere!

But then I noticed the car that had been behind me in the turn lane correctly pausing to allow the young lady to cross in the crosswalk before proceeding in the same direction I was going.

My thought at that moment was “He/She saw what I just did, and if that person catches up to me at the next red light they are going to give me “the look”, yell at me, and tell me that I’m going to Hell.”

I speeded up to get away from the pursuer!

Isn’t it interesting in our world where everything seems to get filmed by cell phones how we worry about those we fret are watching us?

Kind of like belching in a vacant area of a store and then looking around with embarrassment to see if anyone heard it!

What is it about that moment? The fear of being discovered to be a lawbreaker, the anxiety of being seen as doing something our mom would have scolded us for in our growing up years? What causes us to look in our rearview mirror to see if we got away with it?

The car that was “pursuing me”, actually turned right at the very next block. I experienced instant relief, like a get-away vehicle from a bank robbery.

Why?

Like David and his reaction about the after-effects of his Bathsheba rendezvous, I like to think that I get away with things that would cause me embarrassment. It is how I am wired. In fact, I think it’s how most of us are wired. In a world where the gray area is growing like the creature in the 1958 film The Blob, I believe we’re still fairly clear on what is right and what is wrong.

Some of us just like to think we’re getting away with things! Fleeing the embarrassment is the certainty of my imperfections, the signature on my humanness.

This entry was posted on August 4, 2016 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Bible, children, Christianity, Grace, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: David and Bathsheba, embarrassed, embarrassment, fallen nature, falling short, getting away with it, human nature, mistakes, sin