Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Call A Tow Truck!

Yesterday morning I took my truck to work. Four inches of snow had dropped on our area overnight and the roads were going to be slippery. I was glad I stopped at Walmart the day before and got a tow rope too. Now that I had a big truck with four-wheel drive I could actually pull someone out of the ditch if I wanted to! How prophetic of me. And sad at the same time.

Guess what? Half way into town I saw a car in the ditch - a little Subaru. I slowed down and looked more closely at it. The car looked like one a friend of mine owned! I began looking for a place to turn around. Then I saw the lights - a tow truck perhaps - heading for the accident scene. "They've got this," I thought. Then I noticed the flashing lights belonged to an ambulance, not a tow truck.

Uh-oh. I began to pray.

As I continued on my way to work I began to think about my reaction and my emotions about what I had just seen. The sequence.

My first thought was about something I could do. I had a tow rope. I could help someone! How interesting, I thought, that I had purchased the tow rope just the day before I could have actually used it.

I had a certain level of concern for the driver of the car but when I thought that the driver could have actually been a friend - someone I actually knew - my thoughts changed. My concern deepened. And I guess that bothered me a little. Shouldn't I feel the same concern for ALL people?

That's a tough one. I think the concern I felt was the same, but perhaps it was the sense of friend in trouble that made my concern deepen.

We humans are a strange species. Some of us don't care at all. Others care enough to stop. Would I really have been in the way? Should I have stopped? I think I did the right thing by not stopping. I think what matters in God's eyes is our desire.

I contacted my friend later in the day. It turned out the driver of the car in the ditch was not her. We were both grateful for that. But I wonder it isn't me who needs a tow truck in my spiritual life.

God is interested in the condition of our heart. When I first saw that car in the ditch my first thoughts were about me and what I could do. My first thought should have been about the person in the car and what God could do. "He must become greater, I must become less" (John 3:30)

When God sent Samuel to Bethlehem to find a king, we learn an interesting thing about God and what He looks for in each of us..

"So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before Him!”

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. - 1 Samuel 16:6-7

God Looks At The Heart - Love City TV

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