How can traffic jams on our way to work help us let things go?? That’s the last thing I would think would help us on our way to being a wonderful and faithful disciple of Jesus. Yet David shares his experience of being in a traffic challenge with honking horns and misunderstandings to realize that sometimes — even though we are right and they are wrong — we have to absorb it and then let it go. Injustices at times can only be transformed through absorbing the anger, frustration and challenge to become healing, hope and love.
Life is the great teacher for all of us. As much as we try to be right, not everyone needs to know it each time. Sometimes trying to show everyone we are right takes away from the opportunity to experience grace and really be an instrument of peace, joy and love. This chapter teaches us that we need to be the shock absorbers for those who are angry, hurt and misunderstood. At times as a disciple and servant of Christ, we need to take on people’s burdens so that we can move them forward. The cross is a great reminder for us.
David references the Beatitudes as a good teacher for us. The Sermon on the Mount describes the framework of Jesus’ mission and the heart of what it is to be his follower. We are called to be meek, a peace maker, willing to be persecuted, pure of heart and someone who mourns. In all these things there are rewards given by God but they might not be what we expect and more than likely not even immediate. In all of this we are called to be healers for others — that means we have to absorb the frustrations of those around us and drop them off far away so that they may discover God’s grace beyond the storm.
