"Tailgate Driving" - by Rev. Weldon Bares

I have to admit that I really don’t like it when someone tailgates me. It seems to always annoy me. In nearly every case, I am going the speed limit, but somehow it is not fast enough for the speedster.

It’s not like I am a slow driver. I don’t want to sound overly pious, but I try to observe the speed limit. I just can’t get out of the tailgaters’ way without vanishing into thin air.

Several days ago, a driver was tailgating me on Prien Lake Road for several blocks. Then he zoomed around me and cut right back in front of me. A block later he put on his blinker and turned into the Starbucks parking lot. So that was his big-hurry? To get a cup of coffee?

I was even tailgated the other day at Walmart. Not in the parking lot, but in the store. I was actually tailgated by a guy behind me with his shopping buggy. He stayed right on my heels as I went down an aisle.

I love the words of Paul Simon in a great old song: “Slow down, you move too fast. You gotta make the morning last.”

It is a fact of life that we sometimes get in a hurry. All of us do. But I think we need to hear again the words of Jesus: “Consider the lilies of field. They neither toil nor spin.” (Matthew 6:8)

Maybe today, with God’s help, we can slow down a little bit and relax. May God help us to be still for a few minutes, and to know that God is God.