Rumble Strip Warning

Have you ever driven off the road a little and experienced the lovely rumble strips?

And then had a heart attack because it sounded like a monster-movie-sized wasp was now in your car, or had possibly picked it up and was shaking it?

(Asking for a friend.)

Those rumble strips are there for our safety. If we start to fall asleep, or God forbid, are driving and looking at our phone, we can veer off the road. It's not hard to do at all! It can even happen when you're wide awake and looking at the road the whole time. But that jolt will get you back in the center pretty quickly!

Sometimes it feels like there's magnets in those strips, drawing the car to that side of the road. Especially if your spouse or travel partner has fallen asleep in the passenger seat, and you're tired of being the only one awake.

Don't look at me like that.

I have looked at these strips as an annoyance when someone else was driving and kept veering off the road for some reason known only to the secrets of the universe.

I have looked at them as life savers when we've been traveling for hours on end and I have blinked a little longer than I expected to while driving.

I have been completely oblivious to them when I am driving in my lane, and not veering off the road in either direction.

Did you know your spiritual life also has rumble strips?

When you veer off the road God has laid out before you, you'll hit some bumps. That's God's way of reminding you to get back on the road. I can't define what those bumps look like, because they are different for every person.

You might not recognize them at first, because you're 'driving' distracted and allowing something else to claim your attention.

Rumble is defined as: A continuous, deep, resonant sound.

If your attention is completely somewhere else, you might be able to ignore that rumble for a while. Maybe your tires are only barely touching the strips, so the rumble isn't that loud yet. But it's there.

Have you ever had that check in your spirit that perhaps you needed to change something you were doing? Maybe you thought it wasn't that bad, or wasn't hurting anyone, but God gave you a check. He started to rumble to get your attention.

And maybe you ignored it.

God will try to get your attention in that first veered-off place as long as there is road under your passenger-side wheels. This may look like someone else recognizing that you're going off the road, and stepping in to lovingly warn you. (Hence the passenger-side tires.)

And you may find that warning annoying at first, and not see it for what it really is- trying to keep you on the road and in safety.

However, veer off farther, and the warning seems to disappear. The strips are still there, but now under the center of your car, doing you no good because you've veered a little too far. You may think everything is fine at this point.

If you're not careful though, you'll wander a little farther, and the rumbling is back, now under the tires of the driver (you) in a last-ditch effort to wake you up before you go completely off the road. At this point you may also be kicking up dust on your passenger side, and flinging stones at the cars behind you.

So, whatever the reason you're veering, it's affecting other people. And it should most certainly have your attention now, with the rumbling being directly underneath you.

Keep veering, though, and not only will the rumble stop completely, but you will probably wreck your car. There are loads of thing to hit head-on once you're off the road.

Don't ignore the rumble.

Ephesians 4:17-24
(17) This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
(18) Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
(19) Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
(20) But ye have not so learned Christ;
(21) If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
(22) That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
(23) And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
(24) And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

I need to be thankful for the rumble strips in my life, whatever form they take. I don't want to begrudge them or ignore them. I certainly don't want to end up wrecked in the ditch, hurting people on the way.

Hebrews 12:9-11
(9) Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
(10) For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
(11) Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

Thank You, Lord, for always rumbling to wake me up when I get off the road.