Disgusted

Ever get really disgusted with yourself.  I did this afternoon.  I was leaving the post office and there was woman in a high dollar car on the street in front of me.  She was weaving all over the street going about 15 miles below the speed limit.  Ahead of us the light at the intersection had turned green, it is one of those intersections that takes forever to get through.  She put her blinker on as if she were turning left, so I hoped she was going to make the light in time for me to turn as well.  No.  She slowed down to a near stop to turn left into the car wash, her car was clean.  I pulled around her and just barely made the light.

While this was going on I was talking to her.  In glowing terms about her lineage, her mental capacity, and her driving acumen.  She couldn’t hear me, which is a good thing.  I assume that if both our windows were down she would still have been oblivious.  She did not seem to have a clue where she was or any awareness of her immediate surroundings.

I was angry.  Very.

As soon as I got around her and through the light, I got one of those soft taps on the shoulder that the Lord gives me sometimes.  It wasn’t audible, but it was like He was saying, “Really?”  I was immediately disgusted.  Not with the woman, with me.  My anger was not a reflection of the way my Lord would have handled that situation.  Philippians 2:4 tells me I should have put that woman’s needs, whatever they were, ahead of mine.  I do not like that very much, but it says that all the same.

As an apprentice of Christ, I am bound to follow Him., to learn to interact with the world and the people in it in the manner in which He did.  I don’t do very well with that.  Even though I have been on this journey for 40 years, I have more to learn.

Perhaps there will be days soon when I won’t be disgusted with myself.