I’m sitting at a stop light on Lake Shore Blvd. The year is 1998, and I have two friends in the car. I’m driving a 1989 Chevy Cavelier. That car was jacked up, but it got me from point A to point B.
I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a car coming up behind me, and I thought to myself, “Wow, he’s moving pretty fast!” But I didn’t think anything of it . . . I was sure he would slow down and stop behind me, so I immediately looked away.
A moment later, I looked back in my rearview mirror . . . just in time to realize that he was in fact not slowing down in the slightest, and a split-second later he slammed into the back of my car at full speed (he was probably moving at about 50-60 mph).
Thankfully, I was driving a stick, and I had it in neutral. My feet were free; no need for brakes. The car was at rest.
When he hit me, he simply threw my car through the intersection. Then he hung a left and floored it again . . . and ran straight into a telephone pole.
I climbed out of my vehicle and checked on my two friends. They were shaken up, but uninjured. I also was uninjured, and my car had zero damage.
When the police arrived and pulled the man out of the car, they discovered that he was blind and surmised that he was probably trying to commit suicide.
Thinking back on that moment, I am tempted to think that I could’ve seen him coming and moved out of the way. But in hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t. Had I moved out of the way, who might he have hit? Could he have run over a little child? Or killed a family? Only God knows!
I believe God put me right in the way of that maniac, knowing that my car would absorb the impact and that I would walk away without a scratch. I thank God that I don’t have to look back and mourn the death of someone else who got hit because I saw trouble coming and moved out of the way.
Why was I rear-ended? Not because God forsook me, but because God is gracious.
Maybe you’ve never been hit by an on-coming vehicle, but I’m sure you’ve been rear-ended before. You’ve surely been hit with things that should have hit someone else. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you’ve absorbed the impact of many things that should have taken out someone else.
This is our participation in the pattern that Jesus set for us. He was rear-ended for the sins of the world! He was put right in the way of the judgment that should have come upon all of us as he hung on the cross, and he absorbed the full weight of that impact!
When I think of what he endured for me, I can never complain about what I’ve endured for others. He paid the ultimate price; I just got shaken up a little.
