The Gas Cap In Your Eye

I WAS on my way to Terre Haute a few weeks ago. Some of the cachers in the area had decided to hold an event cache in November, of all months! Initially I thought I'd have to miss it, but due to some changes in plans I was able to get over there. Terre Haute is only an hour away, but with the time change between Illinois and Indiana (they refuse to adopt Daylight Savings Time . . . the savages) you lose an hour on the way over. You do gain it back on the way home, I suppose, but all things considered I'd have rather slept a little longer.

So here I was, about half way there when I noticed a black car following close behind me. The winding back roads that I like to take don't always lend themselves to passing, but after a few minutes the blinkers came on and the driver made her way into the other lane. I thought it was a little odd that she didn't so much pass me as she kept up with me and instead was driving in the oncoming traffic lane parallel with my car. I turned to see what was happening and found her pointing at me and mouthing the words "YOUR GAS CAP IS OFF."

The memory came back to me quickly. I had stopped in Paris for gas, coffee, some powerbars and . . . well . . . donuts. Being in a hurry, I had left without putting the gas cap back on. It now hung to the side, flapping in the breeze as I drove along. I smiled, nodded understandingly, waved and mouthed the words, "THANK YOU" as she made her way on past my car.

That's when we both noticed the car in front of us coming the other way. Remember, she was in the oncoming traffic lane where—surprisingly enough—traffic was on coming! I hit my brakes to give her room to swing back into our lane, the person coming at us hit his brakes to give her room, and she hit the gas. The whole incident took a split second, but it played in my head in slow motion.

I immediately realized one very important thing about cars: head-on collisions are MUCH worse than driving without your gas cap on!

And I immediately thought about how we sometimes face life the same way the lady behind me faced my errant gas cap. We see a small problem in someone else's life—something that more or less just irritates us, and we focus on it so much that we don't even notice we're on a collision course that could cause untold destruction in our own lives.

Jesus put it this way, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" In other words, "Why do you nitpick the little problems that others are facing and completely ignore the big issues in your own life?" We wonder about a family member's activities, all the while ignoring the gossip we are spreading about them. A co-worker's personal habits irritate us, but we don't notice the unethical ways we treat customers. Or someone slighted you years ago and you've allowed that to fester from bitterness to unforgiveness to out and out hatred.

Maybe the best advice we could give ourselves is to simply keep our eyes on the road ahead of us! Is there something ahead of us that is going to lead to our salvation or to our destruction? There will always be someone out there whose gas cap is a little loose, just make sure to keep your own nice and tight and keep your eye on the road ahead!

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith
Hebrews 12:2