Drivers’ Ed…again

One of my brothers works for a major pharmaceutical company and, as such, is a well-seasoned international traveler.  At this writing, he has yet another business trip coming up, this time to a place where, unfortunately, he will have to get rent his own vehicle and drive to the company’s site himself.  Not that that’s necessarily problematic; it’s just that the traffic laws in said country are more, um…suggestive, than in ours.

He’ll be careful.  We’ll be prayerful. 

Which makes me appreciate not only the little dotted and solid lines in our lanes here, but also the whole concept of why they’re important enough to be enforced: because people get really hurt otherwise.  In my profession as a nurse, I’ve seen this tragically played out, and I’ll never forget it. 

Ever.

Of course, now the engineers have come up with fancy cars that warn you if you’re listing out of your lane!  Which is really great, until we start relying on that technology exclusively and it goes the way of all electronics, fritzing out without warning.  (Or someone switches it off…!!)

Anyway, this demarcation or concept of proper placement goes W-A-Y back, long before I even took drivers’ ed, (okay, enough with the jokes already…).  We can even find it in the first book of the Bible, but I’ve skipped to fourth:

 “When the Israelites set up camp, each tribe will be assigned its own area.”

So God has this glob of over a million recently freed Jewish slaves roaming around the desert not particularly doing so well in the area of obedience (not that I would do any better), and He seems to be showing them the importance of order.  Placement.  Assignment. 

Unfortunately leading up to this, there have already been some bad things that have happened when a few people chose to step outside of their assigned place.  Really bad.  Learning personal placement can be painful, but it is painfully important.

Translate to modern life: getting outside my assignment can disguise itself like gossip, offense, micro-managing, adult-bully (oh yes!!), usurping authority, and a host of other ways.  OH, how I wish a had one of the internal monitors that goes off like the new cars do when I’m getting out of my lane!

Oh, wait!  I do.  The real question is…

…have I switched Him off?

Numbers 2:2 Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.