Locked Doors, Car Horns and Impatience

Today I decided to walk to church.

Normally, whether I'm leading worship and preaching or just attending worship, I go by car.  This is justifiable when I'm taking a service because the churches are often too far away to walk to in a sensible time, but perhaps less so when I'm attending worship at Poulton Methodist Church which is about fifteen minutes walk away.

This morning I decided to walk, partly because the rest of my family needed to be there early to practice things and I would have been at a bit of a loose and.  I was about half way to church when one of the church members saw me walking and stopped to offer me a lift the rest of the way.  She stopped on a bend, which was where I happened to be, which of course meant that the cars behind her had to stop too.  The rear car door was locked and the passenger couldn't get it unlocked, so it took about a minute for the door to be unlocked and me to get in the car.

One minute!  Sixty seconds!  Hardly a significant period of time, yet the driver behind my benefactor began blowing her horn aggressively and making some very obsene gestures.  I appreciate that she was held up and very, very slightly inconvenienced, but was such a display of outright aggression really necessary?  She may well have had good reason for being frustrated at being delayed; but unless the circumstances are exceptional how much difference could sixty seconds make?

Those who know me well will know that I am not exactly the most patient person behind the wheel of a car and may even at this point be ready to level a charge of hypocricy at me.  They have a point; but today's incident really made me think about how bad a witness I can be to Christ when I'm behind the wheel of a car because I too have lost my temper when somebody has delayed my journey by a very small amount of time.  

I have often said I won't have a fish on my car because I would be such a bad witness for Christ.  Well, I;m going to buy that fish because it will remind me to be a Christian when I'm driving; it will remind me that there is no area of our lives that God isn't concerned about and no area of our lives where we can say, "Right now, I'm not a good witness."