Faith Venture

Dallas Willard was the first to plainly state what I suspected about the first Christians–that they actually did live differently from their neighbors. The power of the Spirit so infused and ordered their lives that other people noticed and many were attracted to this new religious movement.

In America, we too often live our lives with bumper-sticker phrases when we should be actually living in the Spirit minute-by-minute. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s 25 years of refereeing soccer at some pretty high levels, but I’ve become quite observant of people. And I puzzle out motivations and actions.

So when recently stuck in a long line of traffic headed for an event at a venue where access is congested by design (or lack thereof) I notice an expensive, white Mercedes with the license plate “BORN 2X” I presume the driver/owner is a self-proclaimed Christian. After all, I had just read the story in John about Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus and the born of water and born of Spirit discussion.

So I watch to see if the driver exhibits Christian tendencies. You decide (if you know how to drive in traffic, it will help you understand).

Traffic is backed up for two miles on the freeway because of congestion at the intersection at the end of the exit ramp. One reason for the congestion is that people are in a hurry to get through, so they block the intersection by going through a yellow-changing-to-red traffic light but can’t make it and so block traffic.

This white Mercedes driver decides that waiting in the line is too long and switches to the left lane. That’s OK. Except when we reach the intersection, he makes an illegal right turn on red. But traffic is backed up, so he now block four lanes of traffic.

Ten minutes and 400 meters later, I notice that car on my left as I pass it. He gained nothing trying to press an advantage. And that advantage pushed other people back.

So, I ask myself, what life is he proclaiming? What life do you proclaim? Do you so order your life that it is attractive to others who would like what you have?

This entry was posted on May 19, 2011 at 7:26 am and is filed under Ethics, Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.