Dallas traffic drives me insane. I constantly find myself glancing in the rearview mirror and muttering exclamatory statements when I feel the rush of an unexpected vehicle passing on the left lane. I grumble as I watch f-350s play frogger with the lanes.
My pet peeve is when that car passes several cars in the only open lane to finally merge at the end. They claim their constitutional right to drive as fast as they can and leave everyone else honking in their dust. They determine their time infinitely more valuable than all the people who rate life above schedules and consider patience a fruit of the spirit
Why do they do it? Sin.
The insane aspect of this is that lane-shifting and speed contribute little to the actual time a person gets to work or wherever they “need” to get. I now just laugh at the crazy lane-changes, remarking, “he just risked his life for a couple seconds—incredible!” You could save more time running to your vehicle than going 10MPH over to work.
It also blows my mind because the constant lane-changing is a primary contributor to slower traffic. In the same way that walking is the fastest way for a crowd of people to exit a building, a consistent slow speed by cars sticking to their lanes would be the most efficient way for congested traffic to go through.
It’s people like them that are slowing traffic down.
But the most shocking thing I’ve discovered? Knowing these things and judges these people, I still find myself doing the same things at select times. I tutor at people’s homes and so am constantly driving here or there, trying to make precise estimates of the necessary time to get from Plano to Grapevine.
Then accidents happen or a family tries to sneak in some questions after the session. I start passing on the left side, switching lanes, leaving people in my dust. And every so often, I merge at the last possible moment to save 30 seconds, a few minutes on a good day.
Why do I do it? Sin.
I, like Dallas traffic, am insane. I spend all my time trying to get ahead by my own efforts and mostly succeed at keeping other people behind. That’s what I do when I trade an economy of grace for a route that bypasses the Spirit and its patience and love.
“Always be yourself unless you can be batman. Then always be Batman!” is a popular tagline plastered all throughout facebook and utilized by t-shirt designers. The phrase implies that though individuality is important, there might be something better than the typical me. This has been a real struggle for me: how can I maintain my individuality but also be willing to change for the better? How do I filter through critique after critique of well-meaning friends, following advice while not simply living to satisfy the whims of those around me? I can’t put on a show twenty-four seven but I don’t think I am perfect either. How can I know what qualities are essential to being who I am and what needs to go? I can’t simply live to please others but I can’t use my individuality as an excuse for sin either. How can I draw the line between personality and the pestering sin nature that seem so intertwined? Many comments seem true but not all are very helpful. When are people justified to encourage me to change and when are they speaking out of turn? What is essential to being me, and when should I put on a Batman costume?
One thing I have learned while trying to apply criticisms to my life is that lifestyle changes involve sacrifice. If I choose to be gentle, I am choosing not to be bold. If I choose to be gracious, I am choosing not to be just. And though people are always saying both, the reality is that being both is not always an option. I can only be so gracious to the kids I work with in an after-school program before they stop listening to me. Eventually my “grace” makes my comments ineffective. It’s a nice thought that someone can be really nice and still give an accurate picture of someone’s sin, but it cannot happen. Sin is not nice, does not look nice, cannot be described as nice. If I am told to talk less and follow the advice, I give up opportunities to teach. And yet, there are many times where gentleness would be a better approach to a sinful situation than ‘tough love.’ And there are many times where what I am saying is not teaching anyone anything worth learning. Thus, there is validity in most critiques, but don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Sometimes our weaknesses come with strengths.
And there are many times where the person telling me I should change is bias towards a certain behavior. Maybe they are unusually quiet and so have a natural tendency to dislike talkative people. Or maybe they are just plain wrong in their critique of your behavior. They might have an inaccurate perception of your behavior or too little knowledge of it. Most people are critiquing your behavior based on a very limited view of your life, and many are not as wise as they think at making deductions based on their limited knowledge. Many people I have thought to be proud on first glance, turned out to be the exact opposite when I got to know them. Unfortunately most of us speak before we take the time to see the whole picture.
Also, anything that a person tells you to be that is not making you more like Jesus is not necessary. People prefer different personalities and yet other people should not be subjected to the whims of well-meaning friends. People don’t have the right to clone themselves. People don’t have the right to pick and choose the qualities of their friends. I primarily need to be like Jesus, not like so and so or even who so and so wants me to be. Jesus is the ultimate one to imitate, the true batman that I should choose to be.
But on the other side, much of what I do comes from my sin nature. I have so many things to work on and am incredibly grateful when my friends graciously and precisely point out ways I should change. We are all commanded to be encouraging and exhorting one another in love. I never want to use my individuality to excuse my sin. I once talked to a friend who complained that sexual temptation seemed to be a part of his identity. I told him he was right. Sexuality is a part of being human, and sexual immorality certainly stems from our sin nature. There are days when I can’t imagine my life without sin. But positionally, I am dead to sin, it is no longer tied to who I am according to Romans 6, and God promises that He will make me just like Jesus one day (1 John 2:2; Romans 8:28-29). Sin is a daily internal struggle and entangled with what I say it means to be me. So I have to remember that sometimes pride is just pride (not self-confidences), selfishness is just selfishness (not self-preservation), laziness is just laziness (not a needed “break”), and gossip is just gossip (not an innocent conversation). Sin may be a daily struggle within who I am, but it is never essential to being me. Jesus took care of that on the cross (Galatians 2:20).
Always be yourself, unless being like you is not being like Jesus, then always be like Jesus. Your friends are valuable assets in becoming like your Savior, and are doing what they are commanded to do when they exhort or encourage you on this road to glory. However, your friends go too far when they push you beyond this so as to make you like themselves or like what they think you should be like. If you’re like me the voices start haunting your thoughts and drown out what the one who created you is telling you to be. Jesus is making you like himself, and we should strive to be that and not excuse our sinful attitudes and actions. We are all being changed from glory to glory but we don’t necessarily have to see the same thing in the mirror every morning.
As long as we are all seeing a little clearer picture of Jesus in that mirror every day.
“we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
A song that speaks of some of the themes in this post.
Faith Grace and the Mess in-between 