Road Rage
Maybe you are guilty of it. Most of us have gotten pretty angry at least once with some self-centered driver cutting off others and endangering everyone while trying to shave off 30 seconds or so of his or her commute. I’ve had to do a fair amount of confession myself after my angry reaction to roadway narcissists. But this guy down in Corbin, Kentucky takes first prize in my book. Not so much because of what he did, but look at the circumstances.
Clyde White of Corbin, Ky., was charged with attempted murder this last August after police arrested him after a road-rage chase that reached speeds of over 100 mph. White, who had repeatedly rammed his two siblings in their vehicle, is 78 years old, and in that other vehicle were his brother, 82, and his sister, 83 (according to The Lexington Herald-Leader, 8-30-2011).
I’m not sure what it was that got him so upset. Maybe it was just left-over sibling rivalry that they had never grown out of. But at 78 years old ramming your eighty something brother and sister while traveling a hundred miles an hour? Wow! There’s a lot of anger there! I wonder how the three of them are doing now. It’s pretty hard to repair a relationship after an incident like that…and they don’t have a lot of time left to do so. Pretty sad.
Out of control anger gets us in more trouble than we care to admit. Some of you grew up in broken homes because one of your parents (or both) could not….or I should say, would not…control their anger. Some of you are divorced today because you let your anger get the best of you (and are still excusing it). Some of you have lost jobs, ended what could have been valuable friendships, and have injured your children for life, all because of anger. Oh, sure, but yours is justified. After all, they make you angry!
Let’s be honest. No one can make anyone else angry. Anger, whether the volcanous (I think I made that word up) “blow-up” kind or the seething bitter “clam-up” kind, is almost always sourced in our own selfish demand to get our way, or at least to get others to see our way. And while leaving a trail of broken relationships, you shift the blame to others and defend your angry actions because you “have a right” to be mad!
Good thing Jesus didn’t do that or we’d all be lost forever. Listen to what Paul said about the one who we claim to be our example:
“Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross” (Philippians 2:3–8 HCSB).
Meditating a little on that passage will put a quick end to your road rage. Better yet, it might save your marriage, your kids, your job and your friendships.