where waves grow sweet

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I use the carpool lane when I am driving alone. It is only for a mile or two on a particular stretch of the 55 South where it gets backed up. And it is only when I am in a hurry to get somewhere. So really not that egregious, right?

My biggest justification for this choice is that I have had a non-adult child for the past 28 years (Cole was two weeks shy of 17 when Chase was born), so I feel somewhat entitled to a lifetime pass in the carpool lane. Other bits of justification include having my dog in the car. I mean, she may have fur but she is practically human. Anyone would agree, I’m sure. And there’s always the fact that Jesus lives in my heart. That’s gotta count, right? 

I could go on but we all know it’s a bunch of hogwash. It’s wrong and I know it. The problem has been that I haven’t felt strongly enough about the wrongness of it to change my ways. One such time, as I was zipping past all the slowpokes sitting in traffic, I asked the Lord to convict me in a more impactful way than a muted sense of guilt, a purely mental knowledge of wrongdoing or the potential risk of a hefty ticket (for which I’d already worked out my excuse of innocence).  

Sometime last week, I was heading down to Newport, lost in my thoughts, when I realized I was in the carpool lane. No conscious decision had been made. I was just there in the far left lane, flying along as if that is exactly where I belonged. Clearly, a deep enough groove had been formed by all the previous moments of overriding my better judgment that the natural barrier of conscious choice didn’t exist anymore. That can’t be good, I thought. Prayer answered.

I haven’t yet driven down that way by myself since then, so we will see if this actually translates into a change of action – I’ll have to keep you posted on that – but there were a couple things about this experience that served as potent reminders to me. The first is that God is a gentleman who honors the free will he delights to give us, even when it doesn’t result in choices that are ultimately best for us or others. This is a gift I often take for granted. I mean, that’s a pretty crazy level of trust.

The second is that if we repeatedly override our conscience or better judgment, it is very possible that we are tying the hands of our free will, as the natural barrier of choice gets blurred… and then erased altogether. This to me is an even better motivator than the hefty fine California doles out to carpool lane violators.

The third is how much God loves a heart that asks for truth, even in the midst of sin. He won’t turn us away, saying we’ve driven too far or too long down this road to change anything now. We are never locked in so deeply that He doesn’t provide a way back. Plus, His forgiveness for our wrongdoing is so complete that He doesn’t even keep a record of it. Who wouldn’t want to run back into the arms of a God like that?

The last, which I’m sure I will now experience, is that we are not left on our own to make the good choices He shows us. His Spirit empowers our attempts to go in the right direction, no matter how pitiful they may feel and He brings a sensitivity back to our hearts and minds so that we can hear him say, “this is the way, walk in it.” It is no wonder that David, a Biblical figure so known for his sin but paradoxically called a man after God’s own heart, penned this prayer in Psalm 139: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” This is now my prayer too. I have no doubt that it will bring some surprising, transformative insights as I drive down the highway of life with my conscience in tact – and my car patiently sitting in traffic on the 55.