On Sitting in Traffic

I went up to Atlanta yesterday to attend a meeting to plan for a summer camp called IMPACT. It was a good meeting, but the trip up took FOREVER....(flash back to "The Sandlot": Fooorreeevvveeerrrr.....).

Yeah, that's about how I felt. If you've driven on I-85 between LaGrange and Atlanta within the past year, you've noticed that there is a lot of road construction going on. I'm not talking about just a few miles. For about 30 miles or so, there is road construction. And wherever there's road construction (especially if it shuts down lanes), you know what that means: traffic.

I hate traffic. I'm going to be honest. It frustrates me more than probably anything else in the world. Sitting there on a stretch of interstate, going absolutely nowhere when you should be traveling 55mph+ (ahem...or a lot faster)---it grates me to no end.

The traffic had it's benefits, though. Although it almost made me late and wasted a bunch of my gas, it did give me some time to make some phone calls to some friends with whom I hadn't talked in awhile. Overall, it provided me some good time to catch up with people and spend some time in good conversation without worrying about cars driving around me at 75 mph.

As I looked back at my time in traffic, I realized that life treats us the same way. We often run around like crazy people, constantly trying to get stuff done, staying so busy that we barely even notice what's going on around us. Then...BAM. We get stuck. Something happens and forces us to slow down. Most of the time our reaction is much like mine was yesterday. We start muttering about how frustrating it is, and we sit there all antsy, waiting to get going again.

Sometimes, though, I think God wants us just to stop for a little while, to quit scurrying around trying to do things so that we can actually spend some time with him. Unfortunately for us, this often takes God intervening in our lives to the point that he has to throw some sort of road block completely in front of us to slow us down.

So next time you get stuck in traffic, think of the good that can come out of it. Spend some time calling old friends. Take time to look around you and notice the beauty of creation (as best you can in the midst of the concrete). Or spend some time in prayer. And next time you get a "traffic jam" in your life that stops you dead in your tracks, enjoy the pause in the business of life to seek the Lord.

Perhaps that's the whole reason you're stopped in the first place.