Thursday, November 3, 2011

there's a road rage devil?

One brother told the story of his recent confrontation with a motorist. He had almost come to blows with the other driver when he remembered who he was-a pastor representing Christ. "I almost allowed myself to be overcome by the spirit of violence and lawlessness," he said during his prayer of repentance. Many present identified with his confession. As other pastors led the way to the throne of grace, a great cleansing took place that day in the life of the church. Then the pastors abandoned themselves to praise and intercession, which climaxed in a declaration of God's authority over Reno.
John Dawson. Taking Our Cities For God - Rev (Kindle Locations 563-567). Kindle Edition.


In context, this comes from some kind of get-together Dawson had with some pastors of churches in Reno, Nevada, in 1988, so this was a while ago.

Now, this "brother", I assume a pastor, seemed to have had a case of road rage, though I don't know if it was called that back then.

I'm going to assume something, maybe not the wisest of things to do, but in this case I think fairly safe. I'm going to assume that, on the same day that this pastor had his bout with road rage, in all the cities in all the world millions of other people had cases of road rage, too, to greater or lesser degrees, expressed in ways from honking and gestures up to actually physical blows or even worse.

Next, I'm going to go a bit out on a limb, though I think a fairly safe one. I don't think this brother, this pastor, was almost "overcome by the spirit of violence and lawlessness". I think he may have been almost overcome by his own temper, maybe in combination with other frustrations and bad things happening to him or others he knew, and if one wants to posit that he was being tempted by an evil spirit, ok, fine.

As well, I don't think the fact that he was in Reno had much of anything to do with it. If he had been in, say, Helena, or Bangkok, and had suffered a similar situation, likely he would have had to fight his temper then, too. Being frustrated with other drivers is a pretty universal experience among drivers in cities all over the world.

I simply can't buy that this man's temper was the fault of anyone other than himself, let alone supposed evil spirits that somehow have some kind of special control of Reno.

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