Yesterday I went to our local Ingles to do my grocery shopping.  When I had finished and returned to my car, I looked up and saw the car pictured here.  That car is not in motion!  It’s parked like that!  I laughed out loud, then I had to snap a picture.  It was too unbelievable not to share.  

When my husband sees a car parked like that he’ll say, “For heaven’s sake, if they’d just take five seconds…”  It’s true.  How much longer would it have taken for them to actually get their car all the way into their space before they jumped out?  About five seconds.

When I got home and was thinking about the driver, I thought, “If they get the tail of their car hit, they surely asked for it.”  A person who has a license knows the rules of driving.  They know what is expected of them when they call themselves a driver, yet so many drivers don’t take the time to do the right thing.

I call myself a Christian.  Do I take the extra time to:

• Share the Gospel with a stranger?
• Stop and pray with a friend who just shared her burden with me?
• Write a get well card to someone at church and add a favorite Bible verse?
• Volunteer to serve at my church?
• Invite an unsaved family to my home for a snack or meal?

None of the things I just mentioned really take that much extra time from our day.  Just like the careless driver, we can tend to recklessly plunder our way through our day without slowing down for “five seconds” to just do the right thing.  

Don’t allow yourself to be the target for someone’s photo of a careless Christian.  Slow down.  Consider where you’re parked, then look around to see if you need to straighten things up a bit.  

Think about what have you done recently that showed that you were taking the time to do the right thing as a child of God. Ask the Lord to reveal any areas that need to be “straightened out” in your life.

Oh, and take those extra five seconds to park your car in the lines. =)