Sailing Through Life With A Smile

I was driving home from Church a few weeks back and I happened to glance in the rearview mirror and realized that the woman behind me, driving a rather large SUV, was flossing her teeth. With two hands doing the flossing there were no hands left for the steering wheel. I’ve heard some car companies suggest that their vehicles practically drive themselves. At this particular moment I was hoping the claim was true.

And, to make matters worse, while I was using my rearview mirror to check on what was going on behind me (something my Driver’s Ed. instructor told me I was supposed to do every eight seconds) this woman was using hers to check her smile.

Now, I have nothing against good oral hygiene, but I wanted to say to the woman with the clean teeth, “WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?” And then I found myself praying for a complete stranger in a big SUV who happened to have a nice smile.

This picture in my rearview mirror was also a reminder to me that the world around me is outside of my control. I can order my own life to the best of my ability (keep both hands on the wheel and pay attention to where I’m headed) and still be run down by someone who thinks they are somehow exempted from common sense.

This, in turn, reminded me that I really do need to trust in someone who is bigger than me; someone who is bigger than SUV’s and inattentive drivers.

Some people might call this need for someone to order my “order-less” life a weakness but I think of it as just being smart. If I know that there are large segments of my life that are beyond my control it seems to me that I (we) need to give control to someone who can take the randomness of our lives and make it meaningful.

I’m not talking about a self-centered protectionism. This is not a relationship that exempts me from the stupidity of the people around me. But, this is a relationship that can help to make sense out of the stupidity that we see lived out every day. In His own miraculous way, our God is able to take the “out-of-control” and use it to transform the world. I’m just saying. You have to pay attention.