Driving to and from work each day, I pass through six roundabouts each direction. Roundabouts are fairly new to this region, and clearly not all drivers have figured out the rules. Sometimes drivers violate the roundabout laws because they just don’t know. Other times, they do know, but because they are selfish or lazy, they just don’t care.
One of the roundabout violations that seems to get under my skin more than others is the changing of lanes while in the roundabout. I see this at least once a week, and usually more frequently than that.
On one recent trip into work, I witnessed the same individual do so twice, and I found myself getting really irritated with this particular driver. Rather than follow his lane through the roundabout, he chose to drive straight through it as though it were a standard intersection, which resulted in two lane changes in the same roundabout.
“What an idiot,” I thought to myself. And then he did it again at the next roundabout! “Why, if I were a Highway Patrolman, or a County Sheriff…” and then I looked down at my own speedometer and noted that I was a good 12 miles per hour over the limit. Meh, no big deal, but I probably should slow down a little bit.
“You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.'”
How quick I am to mentally admonish the terrible violations of the other driver while giving no notice to my own. Jesus gently reminds us that it is difficult to manipulate the tweezers to get the dust-speck out of another’s eye while I have a bridge-timber hanging out of my own.
Victoriously in Christ!
– damon
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