"Stroke Avoided"

      The car in front of me and I hurried into the right-hand lane to make the turn. I knew it was going to be close because the light had already turned yellow. I prepared to slip through just in the nick of time and what does the guy in front of me do, he stops on yellow, who does that? Irritation level went up just a tad because I was trying to get across town and I didn’t have time to spare. It was not long and the cross traffic had cleared but the light was still red. Now that the traffic was clear I knew the driver in front of me was going to follow the rule, right on red after stop, because we had stopped and I mean completely stopped, in fact it seemed like an unreasonably long stop. The thought flashed through my mind that the office of traffic control needed to come recalibrate this light. You could have cooked a pot roast in that amount of time. But the driver in front of me continued to sit there. Irritation level went up a little more. At this point I was glad that my location was close to the hospital in case of a mild stroke. It was apparent to me that the driver in front of me had fallen asleep or possibly suffered stroke himself, like the one I felt coming on, and I had no other option but to use a little sound encouragement to bring him back to reality. As my hand moved to the horn I surveyed the intersection and traffic flow one last time before deploying a subtle blast of the horn. As my eyes made a left to right sweep, there in front of me was a well lettered, ample sized, traffic sign that said, “No right on red”. Oh, my bad, stroke avoided. Matt. 7: 3-5 and Luke 6: 41-42 had this type of situation and more in mind when those listening were told to remove the beam from their eye before trying to remove the mote from another’s eye. It’s not that I cannot recognize or help remove the mote from my brother’s eye. It’s just that I need to do it with clear vision. Clear vision comes from a knowledge of God’s word.  Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John 8: 31-32). It’s the word of God that helps us to be free of the motes and beams that cloud our sight. John writes in Revelation of the Church in Laodicea, they believed they were rich and had need of nothing. The Holy Spirit revealed that they were lacking in many things and one of their shortcomings, that he mentions in verse 17 of chapter 3, was that they were blind. Christ asked a man in Mark 10: 51 “What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?” and he responded, “Lord, that I might receive my sight.” Many in this world are spiritually blind but it is a self-imposed blindness that they need not suffer from. May we always seek clear vision.