“Road rage” is getting to be a familiar phrase in the news these days:
“Woman is arrested in road rage incident.”
“Police chase driver who waved hand gun in road rage incident.”
And how many accidents are blamed on “He cut me off!”, “He blocked my turn!”—anything that annoys and interferes with ME! It happens many times every day-many times more than we ever hear about.
The term may be new, but the facts are as old as humanity. We talk about “road rage” as though it were something new—something “never heard of when I was a child.”
Not so! It has been known from the time of the very first family on earth. Yes, the first family had two sons, and what happened? Cain, the older brother, was angry, and “Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.” And the human heart has never improved since; it is still subject to that sudden, uncontrolled rage.
Of course in this country, and in most of the more prosperous nations of today’s world, there is a fine gloss of civilization over our lives and a comfortable cushion of complacency. But sometimes the curtain slips a little, and we stare appalled at the chasm below. Can all that rage and fury really be in our hearts? Can we be guilty of those murderous thoughts?
It was summed up in the Bible many years ago: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9).
Isn’t there a remedy? Isn’t there peace somewhere in the world? No. In the world, NO! “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” But there is peace in the Lord Jesus. It is freely offered to the individual, to the lonely, restless, overburdened human being who will come to the Savior with all his problems, his trials, his sins, and simply accept Him as his Lord and Savior. Then there can be peace, and rest, and a hidden well of joy no one can take away. It comes from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
He said, “My peace I give unto you.”
He said, “Come unto Me...and I will give you rest.”
He promises those who come to Him, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
How wonderful! And it is available to anyone young or old, rich or poor-who turns to the Savior for salvation and forgiveness. Can you say, “Christ...loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20)?