Red lights

There is an intersection close to the house where I live. Only one house sits between the intersection and mine. When I come to that intersection and the traffic light is red, I must sit and wait for a longer than normal light cycle. My house is so close, it is in sight, yet I must wait for the long, long red light to turn green before I can get home—especially painful after long trips.

In America, traffic lights are everywhere. Red means stop, green means go, amber is supposed to mean slow down and prepare to stop. In the Washington DC area where I’ve been staying for over a year, traffic is very heavy. Rush hour lasts several hours, every morning and every evening. People can get pretty impatient with each other. When they sit through 2 red light cycles before finally passing each intersection, it makes for a long ride home. I know how they feel, having grown up in this area.

But there are ways of making the long drive better. Let each red light be an opportunity to rest and recuperate from the previous jostling and competition of the traffic. Resting can be a tall order for someone who is anxious to get home. But we don’t reflect on the day enough. We don’t commune with God enough either. Couldn’t a red light be a good chance for reflection and meditation and prayer? We should be grateful for red lights.

On a larger scale, life has other red lights and obstacles to progress. Failed expectations and hopes, disappointments and tragedies, plans that fall through, plans to finally get ahead financially or in a career, —all make us stop in our pursuits. Will we choose to sit and squirm in total anxiety while we are stopped, or will we use that opportunity to go back to the drawing board, back to the throne of God?

Will we view these red lights as challenges needful for a healthier life of faith? After all, if all resistance were removed and we had free travel through life, wouldn’t we turn out to be full of pride and dangerous? Obstacles and disappointments in life are the best thing for us. We don’t naturally go to God if everything is smooth sailing, according to our faulty standard of smooth sailing. God is all wise and is in control. He says that He creates the good and the evil. But He does so only for our good. “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the Lord have created it.” (Is. 45:7,8).

Even if I am a Christian, should I expect no red lights in my life? If I live right, should God only give me good things, as self-centered people judge good? Should I get better treatment than the atheist next door? Should the child of God get preferential treatment from Him?

Who wants special treatment, even from God? I don’t. I want Him to love me and to let me know He loves me. So long as I have that, I’m happy. I want to be able to look into His word and Him point out to me how and how much He loves me. And He has done that many times. What else do we need than love? Just the basics. They say you can’t live off of love, but I disagree.

Moses lived off of God’s love for 40 days up on Mt. Sinai. No food. No water. Christ did the same in the wilderness. In fact, He spent His whole life and finally went to the cross, living off of His Father’s love. His disciples always worried that He had gone insane for spending so much time working for the uplifting of humanity without eating. The paralytic, dropped down from the ceiling, lay in a dream-state, caring less if he lived or died because he heard the wonderful words of the Messiah, “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” (Matt. 9:2). Accepted! Accepted by God! Nothing else mattered! Nothing.

So let’s start looking at stopping in a different way. Let’s enjoy our trip through this life. Life is a journey, not just a destination. It’s not just a job it’s an adventure!

I saw two girls walking and talking. I asked them how far they had traveled. One shrugged her shoulders and the other said, “A half a mile, I guess.” But I had seen them walking when I was a mile away from them going the opposite direction to the store to get something. I don’t know exactly how far they had walked, but what struck me was that they were taking their good time as they walked. School was over, the day was cool, they had each other, and they were talking together the whole way, enjoying their travels. I asked them, “Are you tired?” They both chimed in nonchalantly, “No.” Respectful and in a humble way, it was like, “Sir, what’s the big deal?” Yet, they had walked many miles to the shopping center and back home again.

So can be our walk in this life. Together with Jesus, good company and nice conversation, going places together and doing things together in the witnessing for Jesus and in Christian service, making our way over many miles, through many varied experiences, some nice and some difficult, yet hardly fathoming where the time has gone. Walking together with Him, the yoke is easy and the life burdens are light. Each tragedy is hard but manageable. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. And each blessing is icing on the cake.

And in the end we will lay our head down for the last time and say, “The red lights were many, but not one do I regret. God was good to me.”