On Second Thought

2 Corinthians 10:5 – Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. (KJV)

One day as I was returning my metal grocery cart to the "corral" to collect my twenty-five-cent deposit, a woman in a pick-up truck cut very close to me, pulling into the obviously-marked "No Parking" space beside it.

As well as startling me, her action evoked immediate reactive inner thoughts of annoyance and, yes, indignation that someone would be so rude and seemingly uncaring for her surroundings and those in it.

Can you imagine my further astonishment as she hopped out in dirty bare feet — leaving her door wide open — and tossed me a sideways "Sorry" over her shoulder?

She shouldn't have been driving in her bare feet, but before I could even suggest that she ought to be a little more careful in her driving techniques and footwear (or lack thereof) she sprinted up to the woman who has been faithfully sweeping the vast parking lot every day in the more than twenty years that I've been living here, and placed a two-dollar coin in her hand, thanking her for all she's always doing.

That gesture — though perhaps it could have been done in a little less dramatic and more careful way — was obviously done on the spur of the moment and with a great deal of compassion and care. And it gave me pause for a second thought on how I'd first judged the woman who'd pulled up in the pick-up.

It is humbling to be given such a lesson in basically a split second. Where I could have said something that would've been unkind and ungodly, or un-God-like, something that would have been "against the knowledge of God" as it were, I was offered the insight to captivate or "corral" my immediate reaction, and on second thought, to change my impression of the woman who'd hastily parked the pick-up.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for those moments when we're given time, if even only a split second, to harness our first impressions and to be observant and mindful before we speak. In Your name we pray and give thanks for this day. Amen.

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