They drive British style around here. Which means that I have to drive on the WRONG side of the road.
And also, this is the land of tiny. The people are tiny. The houses are tiny. The food is tiny. (rice….rice is not big) They leave very tiny spaces in between cars at red lights. The roads are narrow and so are the parking spots. If you miss your destination…GOOD LUCK…because there are no places to turn around. So it makes sense that I would drive the largest vehicle possible in the land of tiny. Of course.
Well today, I was driving and I had to go into this warehouse type thing to pick something up. There was only one way in and it was the same way to get out.
So I had to back out. With a huge truck. In the land of tiny. Onto a busy road.
I started sweating.
So I backed out onto the road, but I had pointed the car in the wrong direction. My passenger was trying to prevent me from making this mistake, but my brain had just gone into automatic mode and I thought the roads were switched. I had already committed to my incorrect car pointing and we had to drive WAY out of the way to get back home because, as I mentioned before, there is no place to turn around.
And since my passenger spoke only Thai and basically all I can do is say hello and ask how you are doing, I had a lot of time to think.
I was thinking about driving in Phuket and how that relates to my walk with Jesus.
Before I got to Thailand, I had ONLY ever driven on the CORRECT (ahem, RIGHT) side of the road. And my first time out driving, I was all kinds of messed up. My brain was programmed for everything to be in different places. The wipers are on the left side of the steering wheel. The stick shift is on the left side of the steering wheel. My seatbelt is over my right shoulder instead of my left shoulder. Everything was opposite. I knew how to do it all, but you would have heard some choice words if you had been in the car with me when I tried to hit the turn signal and accidentally turned on the wipers. It is entirely possible that I still do that from time to time.
My brain is programmed with 32 years of right-hand-side-of-the-road driving. And when I’m in Thailand, I just can’t do it that way. If I did, people would die. It’s that serious.
So I have to reprogram my brain. Except, its not as easy as you would think. (I STILL, even after all this time, walk to the passenger side of the car about every other time. I do it EVERY time in a parking lot)
I am fine when there are cars around me. I just go with the flow.
The trouble occurs when I am alone on the road. My mind sometimes goes back to its original programming and I find myself driving on the right hand side of the road. I may have freaked some people out by doing that. Oops.
If you are reading this and I freaked you out with my driving, please accept my sincere apologies
My brain developed with an understanding of how things should be. And now, suddenly, the way my brain is programmed no longer works for me. It isn’t right. It is dangerous. So I have to find another way.
My journey with Jesus has been like that. I used to be so crippled with fear, worthlessness, self-hatred, negativity, and plenty of cynicism.
Those ways did not bring me life. And if I kept thinking in those old patterns, I would surely have died. (maybe not LITERALLY…but you know what I mean)
We can all agree that Satan is a liar, and the father of lies, right? (John 8:44) Anyway, all he had to do was whisper some lie into my head that lined up with the bad things I thought about myself, and I would just down-spiral. I would take my eyes off of the Lord and put them on myself and I would be a mess in about 20 minutes.
One day I had this kind of realization that smacks you upside the head and makes you wonder why you never thought of it before. I realized that self-control (that much loved fruit of the spirit) can apply to your thought life as well. Once I learned to discern truth from lies, it became my greatest weapon against the lies of the enemy. If the thought I was thinking was bringing death to me or to other people, I would simply not allow myself to think it anymore. I would change my thoughts. I used to literally shake them off of me, which probably looked weird to people in Africa, but it was so necessary for me 🙂
It is a lot like driving in Thailand. I can easily fall into old thought patterns if I am not careful. I have to remain vigilant. I have to be aware of the thoughts I am dwelling on. I also have to be careful to not allow condemnation to seep in. Having thoughts is not bad, but choosing to dwell on thoughts that don’t line up with truth is what gets me into trouble.
Also, like driving in Thailand, it is better for me to be surrounded by people going in the same direction. Sometimes being alone too much just makes me drift into the wrong way of thinking.
In conclusion, driving in Thailand and living for Jesus are the same thing. If you don’t pay attention, you will surely die.
This picture has nothing to do with anything I posted above – but Thailand is also the land of weird traffic lights. Please observe ——>
