Zipping through traffice

lane closure 3b
You can hear Rod Serling’s thin, wiry voice in the back of your head…“You’re travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of … torturously slow traffic; a journey into a cramped little world of bumpers and taillights. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, Lane Closure!”
 
I see the flashing arrow of doom and because I was raised to be conscientious and polite behind the wheel, I move over at an appropriate and safe distance. All drivers of a similar constitution do the same … leaving the closed lane empty for a space of some thousand meters. There is another class of drivers on the road; ones who have always suspected that they are more important and should be moved to the front of the line. They see the open lane as our tacit agreement with their inflated self-assessment. They speed gleefully ahead, careening in at the last possible moment. As we watch them, our ire rises and we try to turn our cars into an impenetrable wall of resistance against these pretenders to the throne. Both sides end up frustrated, perplexed, delayed and sometime with crumpled fenders.
 
It has been proven that if drivers stay two abreast and take turns at the bottleneck, traffic is safer and flows significantly faster. It’s called zippering. Zippering is safe, polite and would get us all where we’re going faster. Doing what’s best for the other guy would be best for us. The downfall of this technic is that it has to be observed by all or at least most of the drivers to work. I don’t know that I’ll ever see that lived out on our roadways. We can at least strive to live it out in the Body of Christ … the church.
 
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10
(See also: 12:16; 13:8; 14:13; 15:17)

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