Slow trucks passing slower trucks. 

In some ways, it’s a metaphor for all the frustrations of daily living. Driving along at a safe but slightly excessive speed, you encounter a truck barely traveling at the approved speed limit and ever so slowly passing another even slower truck in the right hand lane.

Patience is a virtue but it’s also painful. You hate being slowed down by a big old truck. And while you appreciate the fact that this truck has every right to safely pass an even slower truck, you really wish he’d hit the gas and pass more quickly!

Worse, you notice a sign on the back of the truck in the passing lane that says, “Speed controlled electronically.” This means, of course, that the driver’s efforts to pass the rig in the right lane are hampered somewhat by his corporate office’s predetermined sense of how fast he can go. So there’s no use cursing the driver. Curse the company!

All of this is silly, right? It’s obsessive behavior that embarrasses you even as you engage in it. “Let go of it,” you say to yourself. “This, too, will pass.” Eventually.

And yet for all my efforts—and all the many miles I travel—I have a hard time with this.

Slow trucks passing slower trucks. Don’t they know the king is in his chariot right behind them, claiming the right of way? Don’t they understand that it’s urgent that a very important person like me pass by quickly?

Have mercy on me, Lord, in your compassion. Be patient with me as I refuse to follow your example. But above all, either clear the highways of my life of all slow moving traffic or teach me to slow down and “go with the flow.” Amen.