Cutting Off Road Rage
According to a recent study of North American drivers, the highest incidence of Road Rage occurs during morning rush hours in general, and more specifically on Tuesday mornings in September. Predictably, another spike traditionally occurs on Fridays during evening rush hour and on urban roadways, as opposed to rural. Sundays prove to be the least hostile day to hit the road.
The AAA Foundation offers these tips for "cutting off" road rage before it starts:
All drivers need to take a deep breath sometimes and remember that most important thing about your commute is getting to your destination safely. Here are a few tips on how to avoid aggressive driving from our road rage brochure:
1. Don’t offend: Avoid cutting other drivers off and apologize if you accidently do so. Avoid tailgating and aggressively honking the horn as these things anger other drivers. Avoid making inappropriate or offensive gestures.
2. Don’t Engage: If you notice an aggressive driver, do your best to get out of their way. Avoid eye contact to prevent any encounter from becoming more personal. Seek help if you think someone is following you by driving to a safe/crowded location.
3. Adjust Your Attitude: Don’t focus on “making good time." Instead, leave earlier to allow yourself extra time in case there is traffic that slows you down. Put yourself in the other driver’s shoes – would you want to be cut off, tailgated, or yelled at? If you find yourself getting angry while driving, take a deep breath and remember any escalation of a situation will only make things worse.
These sound like great tips for life in general. When relationships get stressful:
Don't offend!
- "Don't use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them" (Ephesians 4:29, NLT).
- "But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips" (Colossians 3:8).
- "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another" (Romans 12:10, KJV).
- "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves" (Philippians 2:3).
Don't engage!
- "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone" (Romans 12:18).
- "Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification" (Romans 14:19).
- "Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry" (James 1:19, NLT).
Adjust your attitude!
- "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Roman 12:2).
- "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:5-8).
- "Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes" (Ephesians 4:23, NLT).
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McNasty
In February 2009, a 27-year-old woman from Fort Pierce, Florida, walked into a McDonald's restaurant and ordered a 10-piece McNuggets meal. The McDonald's employee, after taking the order, then discovered that they were out of McNuggets. The employee told the customer that the restaurant had run out of McNuggets, and she would have to get something else from the menu.
The customer then become irate, took out her cell phone and called 911 to complain. The 911 workers, who were less than helpful, received a total of three calls for help from the disgruntled customer! Instead of McNuggets, all the angry woman got for her complaints was a ticket from police for misusing 911.
Anger can skew our perspective and twist our judgment. In this state of mind, mole hills quickly become mountains and what follows is seldom good. As the psalmist writes, "Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil" (Psalm 37:8, New International Version).
Patience Born of Hope
Ben Patterson writes:
“Hope is essential to waiting. Why wait unless there is something worth waiting for. There is a logic to the world’s frenetic grasping for everything now—not only does it lack humility, but it has given up on a future that is anything more than an extension of the present. Eternity is a vague unknown; the here and now is what is substantial. The world reasons that since there is no great eternal hope to wait for, why wait for anything?”
He goes on to express how this lack of hope infects even the Christian psyche:
“Christians are hard hit by this attitude. I know many believers who formally subscribe to the doctrines of hope and heaven and eternity, but who live practically as though they didn’t. When it comes to how they deal with a difficult marriage, failing health or a bleak professional situation, they live as though there were no tomorrow that shines with God’s promises. They act as though there were only the here and now, and they grab for as much of it as they can get.”
– Ben Patterson, WAITING, p. 13
[Ben Patterson has been campus pastor at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, since 2001. He is a contributing editor to Christianity Today and Leadership Journal.]
When faced with enduring a trial, we Christians must remember to wait with a patience born of hope. Our reward must be the anticipated fruit of our patience and faith, not the fruit of disparate grasping for worldly satisfaction.
"My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning" (Psalm 130:6).
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