Expectations
This morning, while on my way to an appointment, I had two experiences with trucks towing trailers. The first one was early on in my trip. The truck in front of me was towing a smaller cargo trailer and turned left between two cars going in the opposite direction. If it had just been the truck, he would have completed his turn without getting in the way of the second car. However, because he was towing a trailer, the second car had to slow down to give him time to finish turning.
I imagined myself as the driver of that other car. In my younger days, I would have been mad at the truck driver for negatively impacting my trip. Now, there is a greater chance that I would have understood the driver wasn’t disregarding my rights and the delay was insignificant.
The second example was on 29th Street. The front car, a Hyundai, was going slower than a pickup truck with an open bed trailer would have liked. He moved into the right-hand lane to get around the car. However, because he was towing a trailer, it took him longer to get in front of the Hyundai than he expected. He ended up merging back into the left lane dangerously close to the Hyundai because he was in a right-turn-only lane. Again, I put myself in the place of the driver of the Hyundai and wondered whether he got upset that the truck driver merged too close in front of him.
This made me realize that almost any situation could be interpreted as good or bad depending on what you focus on. For example, I got my teeth cleaned yesterday, and it was overcast and raining. When a person is scaling your teeth (I’ve always thought calling the process scaling was funny), you are doing more listening than talking because the person has their hands in your mouth. Anyway, she started out by commenting how gloomy a day it was outside. Then, she pivoted into how we sure needed the rain. Both observations were correct; it is just a matter of which one you wanted to focus on.
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” - Philippians 4:4-9 ESV
I’m not saying there aren’t people and situations where the person intentionally does things to hurt another person. We do live in a fallen world. However, we are saved and are looking forward to spending eternity with our God. What could make any situation seem better than that?
