In one situation this year, a NASCAR truck series racer lashed out at another competitor while the race was under caution.  This was in retaliation for a wall scraping incident that happened just moments earlier.  Unfortunately the victim of the retaliation was a NASCAR Truck Series Championship contender who lost any championship hopes after the intentional crash.  To add fuel to the fire, in a post race interview the driver who caused the intentional crash was not contrite or apologetic.  The sanctioning body parked him for the weekend and hit with a $50,000 fine.  Further team and sponsor actions included having the sponsor remove their name from the car for the balance of the season. There were calls to the team owner for the driver’s dismissal and replay upon replay of the incident on every news media outlet of this incident and several other 2011 season incidents this competitor had been involved in.  Almost unanimously the fan community felt the wall rubbing incident was just rubbing and racing and that the intentional crashing of a championship contender was completely unjustified and basically on-track road rage.

A good Christian friend told me the story about a road rage incident he experienced.  He is a good Christian man.  He had led a Bible study in his home.  He is highly educated and holds an advanced degree.  He often works with children and is a role model to many.

The event he described to me started out with a car cutting him off and he became uncharacteristically enraged.  He would admit that he had occasional bouts with anger but nothing at this level.  He began to chase the offending driver and soon went on a 10-20 mile road rage chase of this other car at speed, cutting through traffic trying to chase down the driver. 

Now you might think this was a bit surprising and even shocking but I have not told you the entire story because he did this while his small son was in the car with him.  The son was scared to death and screaming at the top of his lungs for his Dad to please stop.  Eventually, the man came to his senses and ended the chase. 

Anger acted out does not make sense and it is not logical. What was my friend going to do if he ever caught up with the other driver?  Ram him?  Run him off the road?  Pull up alongside and give him some inappropriate gesture?  I don’t think that he could even answer that question.  This was totally out of character for this man and clearly Anger, un-dealt with, grows at least cumulatively, always earns interest and perhaps is even geometric in its growth.

Although I have not had an incident like my friend’s, I thought about how many times have I received a category 5 stimulus and answered that with a level 10 response?

Here are the telling words of a Christian Marriage and Family Therapist friend of mine, “I actually see anger issues as pretty core to much of what my clients are going through, both men and women.  The genders often display it differently, but the core (issue) is the same.”

Often times we will hear someone try to explain and even justify their anger at the track. They will state causes like a blown engine, a pit stop error, a perceived wrong move by another competitor as the cause of their anger.  In reality, these events are just the triggers that reveal what is already resident in our lives.  If we shake a glass filled with root beer, the spilled contents will be root beer.  The anger that bursts forth from our lives is not from an external source.  It is there all the time.  James reminds us in James 3:11 “Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water?” 

Anger multiplies and soon its acid burns a hole in our hearts and then it comes out when we least expect it destroying our most prized relationships.  We then have to go into a damage control mode where we try to somehow put back together the pieces.  Often times it is impossible to repair the damage because we have triggered the hurt and anger of others and we have to just leave the situation, marriage, team, etc.

Anger is like so many things that we can focus on in hopes we can beat it, but alas, while it is easily invited in, it is not easily evicted from our lives. There is a transforming work that must take place.       

Romans 12:2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Richard Lewis
Pathway Christian Cruisers
Pathway Christian Church
Riverside, CA

Recently a friend at work was asking me a bunch of questions about tires and what can happen when they are worn out and go flat. He and some of his co-workers had noticed bald tires on another employee’s full sized pickup truck. The truck’s owner had calmly explained to everyone that he just planned to drive on the tires until they finally went flat.

Each question I asked came back with an even more alarming answer. “Are these bald tires the front tires?” was answered with a “Yes.”  “Is any metal mesh cord showing on the tires?” was again answered with a “Yes.”  “Does the truck have a raised suspension?” was also answered with a “Yes.”

The obvious thing that ran through my mind was just how hazardous a front flat on a raised full-size pickup truck might be.  I had a catastrophic flat on my heavy Suburban tow vehicle at low speed many years ago and it was pretty difficult to get the truck steered off the road safely.  In the short distance I had to drive the truck to get it to the side of the road the tire was completely demolished. This truck driver did not realize when he was driving at night he was probably throwing up sparks off the exposed metal tire cord signaling police officers that his tires were no longer a legal tread depth. Although I’m sure this truck owner thought he would be able to control the truck when a tire went flat, it is entirely possible that he could not. I imagined the truck having a flat right front tire. The steering would pull right and then he would have to correct to the left. If the right tire was completely flat when he overcorrected to the left, the right front wheel edge could dig into the paving and the truck would very possibly end up rolling over similar to the many SUVs had done a few years ago when their tires failed catastrophically. 

Those of us who understand the dynamics of vehicles realize that driving on bald tires with a heavy vehicle is very dangerous and that the few hundred dollars the tires would cost are peanuts compared to the cost of a damaged or totaled vehicle.  We, very objectively, can easily see that the consequences just don’t outweigh the risks and we would probably call the driver foolish for the chances he was taking with his life and other’s lives like loved ones that are sometimes passengers in the truck and fellow drivers on the road.    

It was so easy to see and judge this man’s folly but then I realized this whole scenario sounded very familiar to me on the spiritual side of things.  How many times have I been tempted to walk in the wrong path?  Sometimes we do the dangerous dance with sin and see just how close we can get to sin without getting burned by its consequences. Unfortunately, a single unwise decision on something that we can control—like deciding to drive on tires until they blow out—can set in motion consequences that we can’t control.

Others around us can see the sparks flying up off our tires more easily than we can.  Soon there is the inevitable accident and we, ourselves, along with other innocent bystanders like family and friends, get hurt.  We look back in retrospect and ask ourselves, “What was I thinking?” or “I had so many chances to do the right thing and bail out but still made the wrong choices!”  James states to it so clearly in James 1:14 “but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.”

The real answer to staying clear of sin is to stay in community with others. It is in community that we find the support system God has designed to keep us close to Him.          

Eccl 4:10 “If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!”

Richard Lewis
Pathway Christian Cruisers
Pathway Christian Church
Riverside, CA

One that caught my attention some four decades ago read: “God is my Co-Pilot.”  Interestingly enough, I saw that same bumper sticker again on a car just last week.  What an interesting flashback to a time when my faith was so much less mature.  I wondered from where that phrase came?

Well, with Google one can learn just about anything.  “God Is My Co-Pilot” was a 1943 autobiographical novel written by Robert L. Scott Jr.  In 1945 it was turned into a movie with a couple of actors we would later see in television series.  Plucked from a website, here is a synopsis:

In Kunming, China, in 1942, pilot Robert L. Scott watches Major General Claire L. Chennault with envy as he briefs a squadron of pilots for an air strike on Japan. The grounded Scott is upset that he will not be able to participate in an action for which he has prepared from the time he was a small boy living on a farm near Macon, Georgia: As a teenager, Scottie buys an old World War I airplane, then in 1932, he graduates from West Point. Later, Scottie qualifies as a pilot at Kelly Field in Texas, Scottie trains to be a combat pilot, but when war is declared, is forced to become an instructor, because at thirty-four he is too old to fight.

One day, Scottie is ordered to Wright Field in Florida. After additional training, Scottie and his crew fly a B-17 bomber plane under sealed orders to India, where they then wait for further orders. Eventually, the crew learns that they were to bomb Tokyo from a base in the Philippines, but because the Japanese have since occupied the islands, the mission has been canceled. Instead, the crew is assigned to ferry supplies to the Flying Tigers, mercenaries under the leadership of Chennault, who have contracted to fight on behalf of the Chinese government.

After Scottie witnesses the Tigers’ aggressive response to a Japanese attack, he entreats Chennault to teach him the Tigers’ combat techniques. Chennault agrees to lend Scottie a battered airplane to repair and train in. Later, during a solo encounter with the Japanese, Scottie is so effective that the Japanese mistake him for an entire squadron. The killing takes its toll on Scottie, however, and he tries to resolve his feelings during talks with Catholic priest “Big Mike” Harrigan.

I have no idea how the title of this book became a pop culture bumper sticker.  I do remember thinking that I probably wouldn’t be putting the sticker on the bumper of my daily driver (a ’57 Bel Air convertible) for two reasons.  First, I wasn’t very bold in my faith.  Second, the way I drove that car…well, let me just say that it wasn’t especially God honoring.

The other thing I remember is the backlash against that bumper sticker…not from the unbelievers but from people of faith.  No, God is not my co-pilot; I’ve relinquished the controls of my life to God completely!  God is the pilot of my life!  Wow, I thought to myself back then, that’s how a really mature Christian must live their lives…and I would beat myself up for missing the mark.

Today, I better understand the progression of salvation.  I have been saved from the penalty of sin (justification), a onetime event that seals my eternity through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  I am being saved from the power of sin (sanctification), an on-going process that continues uncompleted throughout my lifetime as I submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  I will be saved from the presence of sin (glorification), the result that will come when God calls me into His presence for continual praise and fellowship.

So I guess that the pilot/co-pilot discussion is a moot point…just one more inadequate attempt to define an indescribable God with limited human language.  (Just don’t forget to listen to God up in the control tower!)

Paul Neighbors

May I suggest something nearly 2000 years old but proclaimed “new” when spoken?  The time is at the end of the final week of Jesus life. 

Much has been written in the gospels about that week.  There was the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.  Christ drove the money changers out of the temple.  And there was much teaching recorded that week. After a time of securing a place to celebrate the Passover supper, Jesus and his disciples are gathered in the upper room. 

Early in the evening, Jesus institutes a memorial, which we observe today as communion, by breaking the bread and sharing the cup of wine as symbols of the pending sacrifice of his broken body and poured out blood.

Unbelievably, shortly after this the disciples begin to argue about who would be the greatest in the kingdom to come.  As an object lesson, as the evening meal was in progress, Jesus got up from the meal, removed his outer clothing, wrapped a towel around his waist, poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet. The lesson: “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you…serve one another.”             

Then he tells them. “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”  They each ask, “Is it I?”  Privately, Judas Iscariot is identified as the betrayer and told to leave quickly to do what he must do.

Peter declares that he will lay down his life for the Lord and Jesus responds: “Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!”

Next Jesus comforts the disciples; “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  He tells them, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Then he reassures them by letting know that he will send the Holy Spirit, an “advocate to help you and be with you forever.”

But back after Judas left the room, Jesus made this statement: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

What a difference December 2012 will be if each of us strives to love one another and to be known as His disciples!

Paul Neighbors

It may seem odd for a woman to begin a devotional about a movie aimed at men. But, I do so for a reason. In the days following the movie I found myself thinking about it often.

One part in particular touched my heart deeply and stirred my spirit. It was at the very end when Adam challenges the men of his church and calls them to stand and be courageous. After mentioning one by one the specific areas he will firmly stand and fight for in his family, empowered by and with help and guidance from God, he then asks, “Where are you men of courage?!”

Even though this was a call to men/husbands/fathers, and I am not one, the Spirit in me moved and I wanted to stand up right there and then in the middle of the theater and shout, “Here I am, Lord!”

As I thought back on this and how I had felt at that moment God whispered to my heart, “Judi, I not only desire men of courage, but I desire women of courage, too. Yes, yes! I have called you to be courageous.”

As women we may not see ourselves as such. Satan surely does not desire us to believe that we can be. But, the Spirit reveals God has called us women to stand firm and fight for our family and for the helpless, empowered by and with help and guidance from God. If we are married we are to do this by our husband’s side, being the helper God has created us to be. If single, with God as our Husband leading and providing.

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” Ecclesiastes 4:12 “And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.”

We can read about many women of courage in God’s Word – Ruth, Shiprah & Puah, Rahab, and Deborah. Esther is the greatest example of courage and encouragement to me. God called her at “such a time as this” to be courageous, to stand up and say, “Here I am, Lord!” She went unbidden to the king, her husband, which was an offense for which she could be immediately executed. Though her heart was frozen in fear, she trusted in her God, our God, the God who is able. She saved her people from being annihilated.

Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”

As daughters of the King let us heed His call to courage! Let us be mighty and powerful women of God, for our husbands, for our family, for God‘s Kingdom! Go forth women of courage! Stand up and shout, “Here I am, Lord!”

Joshua 1:6a, 8&9 “Be strong and very courageous. Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Judi Holland