Being in Front

I was driving home around lunch time, and when I reached a red light in an intersection I found myself behind a long bed truck also turning left.  I usually don’t like driving behind long bed trucks because they’re usually slow, and when you are in a two-lane road it’s sometimes hard to overtake them.  Although this truck wasn’t carrying anything, it still did not go as fast as I wanted it to go, and, as I expected, I had a hard time finding a way for me to overtake it.  So I patiently drove behind it until I found a way out!

As it turned left to a usual shortcut leading to a main road, I decided not to follow it, and took the long way that also lead to the same road.  As I reached the main road I saw in my rear view mirror that the truck I was following was now behind me.  I found myself smiling, relieved that at least I’m not behind the truck following its pace of driving, but I was now in front, driving as fast as I wanted to without the truck hindering me.

As I was smiling a thought entered my mind – my being in front, ahead of the truck, was what made me happy.  As long as I was behind the truck, and it was dictating my speed, I didn’t like it.  But when I found a way to overtake it, to be ahead, in front, doing things my way, that’s what made me happy.  I was consumed with the desire to be first, to be ahead of the truck.  Hmmm…I thought again…just like life, isn’t it?

It’s all about being first, being ahead of the pack, doing what we want, in our own pace, in our own way.  And if anyone blocks our way, or hinders what we want to do, we always find a way to overtake them.  And if there is no way to overtake them, when we can’t dictate the pace, when we don’t get to do things our way, that’s what ruins our day.

It’s interesting how God teaches us the opposite.  It’s all about humbling ourselves, and realizing that we can’t always have things our way.

1 Peter 5:6  Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

Could this be why there are many who are impatient with God, frustrated even?  We want things to go a certain way, but God seems to be blocking the way.  He has His pace, and we have ours.  That is why there are many who decide to give up on God, “overtake” Him, and go their own way.  And yet the Scripture above tells us to humble ourselves under God’s might hand so that He may lift us up.  If we are truly walking with God it is so important to stay behind Him, and allow Him to set the pace, and IN DUE TIME, or in God’s time, things will fall into place.  So many times we want to lift ourselves up, when it should be God doing that.

Philippians 2:3-4  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

It’s the same thing God asks from us in our relationships with others.  Sure, there will be times that we are leading the way, and things may be going our way.  But there will be times when we need to humble ourselves, shelve our own personal desires and goals for a moment, and consider others also.  There may be a reason that someone is leading us at this moment, that we are following someone else’s pace.  It is so hard to consider others better than us, or consider their interests also.  As we humble ourselves we  eventually realize that sometimes the other person’s ideas or ways are actually better than ours!

I remember driving to Baguio City when I was still in college, and young as I was I was impatient with how the car in front of me was not overtaking the truck that was in front of him.  So I decided to overtake.  As I entered the other lane I was surprised to see that I was just approaching a curve, and there was a bus coming my way!  So I quickly swerved back to my lane, and eventually realized that was the reason why the car wasn’t overtaking.  He was not overtaking for a reason, and I didn’t see it his way.  He was right all along.

Is being first, the one in front of others, something that consumes us, something that we must always have?  Sometimes we need to realize that we need to step on the brakes, humble ourselves, and realize that there may be a reason why God is asking us to humble ourselves before Him, and allow Him to set the pace.  And there may be a reason why God is asking us to humble ourselves before others, to learn from them, from the circumstance we are in.