The Right of Way

I have a plan to save a little bit of money. 

My current efforts to be thrifty have centered on car insurance. I changed providers and will save $240 this year.   

Enter AARP – we all know about this organization. Refusing to reply to any of their solicitations for a great many years, I eventually acquiesced. 

My new auto insurance provider tells me that I can save more premium costs if I take the AARP Driving Course designed specifically for those of us who – well, you know.

The online course is to take at least 6 hours. The description, “at least” is accurate. They say these words because it is not in their best interest to tell you exactly. If better informed, we older folk would simply say, "Pass."

I was expertly fooled, but I’m almost done.

I won’t say that everything presented within this course's context proved to be enlightening.

I won’t say that I found a significant number of tips that will help me navigate our country's roads for decades to come.

But I look forward to the discount earned and note that the advice disseminated might give me pause for thought during future windshield times.

I was also intrigued and surprised to find that these morsels of caution apply to more than just geriatric driving habits. By the way, the driving habits adjective mentioned above is intended to be universally descriptive and is not to be employed in any way, shape, or form when reflecting on this writer.

Consider these emphasis-added instructions:

• "And as a general rule, remember that the right-of-way is something you give, not something you take."
• "Trains can be on any track, at any time, going in either direction, so always yield the right-of-way to the train. The train cannot yield to you."
• "Regardless of who is right, be prepared to yield the right-of-way to someone who demands it - there is no point in being “dead right.”

The AARP Driving Course also supplies these general rules for right-of-way at four-way stops.

• "Whichever vehicle arrives first at the stop sign has priority."
• "If two vehicles stop at the same time, priority is given to the vehicle on the right."
• "If an intersection is congested, or if the traffic signals are not working, all vehicles should treat it as a four-way stop."

Maybe it's just me, but these 'suggestions' could certainly be applied to everyday behaviors.

A few weeks ago, I needed to go back to Target because there was one item that I had forgotten the day before. Entering the checkout queue, I reached the line at nearly the same time as a lady with a cart full of items. She had actually beat me to the lineup by a second or so. And yet, she smiled as I backed up to let her go first. "No way," she said.  She refused to place her cart ahead of me noting, "You have only ONE item!". She GAVE me something when she could have exercised her right to go first.

Every single day, we are facing four-way stops. We are merging into society along with everybody else. And through it all, we are given opportunities for kindness, gentleness, humility, compassion, and patience. Colossians 3:12-15

Well, we know that the writers of scripture never took an AARP Driving Course, but they certainly knew what it's like to follow Jesus. Interestingly enough, I think we do too. I don't know about you, but I think that for quite some time, I'll be looking at stop signs a lot differently now and I hope I can apply what I have learned to situations of all types.