First Baptist Church of Beltsville
Finding Peace with God on the Hilltop of Beltsville
Pastor needs to vent about a pet peeve. I get VERY irritated by drivers who look at their cell phones at a stoplight! They almost always miss the green light, forcing me to blow my horn at them to startle them into moving. I am patient with drivers who have mechanical problems, seem lost, or are student learners behind the wheel. But, I have no patience for a person who cannot wait until they park to check something on their phone. Last week, I witnessed a driver who was clearly much more interested in her phone than driving to her destination.
When I was pulling up to an intersection with a yellow light, I was surprised to see that a car was parked in the left turn lane. The car had completely missed their opportunity to turn left on a green arrow, and now the lights were turning red for all of us. When I stopped next to the car that had failed to go at a green light, I was not surprised to see that the driver was staring down at her lap, a sure sign that she was looking at her phone. I shook my head in disgust as I waited for the lights to turn green.
When my light turned green, her turn arrow was green also. Did she notice the green light? Nope! Was she aware that all the cars around her were moving through the intersection? Not until it was too late. As I glanced back in my mirror, I saw her head come up only in time to see her turn arrow turn yellow. She started forward for a few feet, thought better of it, and stopped for another cycle of lights. What did she do next? You guessed it: She looked back at her phone.
Some people never seem to learn the simplest lessons in life. I certainly hope that doesn't apply to your spiritual life. The Bible speaks about repeated folly in a very unflattering manner. "As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly" (Proverbs 26:11). Not a very pretty picture, is it? Making a mistake is one thing, but repeating the same mistake chronically puts us in a dog-vomit category. Yuck! And, please don't ever let me catch you at a red light looking at your phone. I will surely blow my horn and expect to see you coming forward during the next invitation to confess.