For a country founded on values, America has moved into lawlessness in both the small things and the big.

Recently I stopped for a red light at the corner of 31st and West End in Nashville on my morning commute. Yes, I STOPPED for a red light that was red before I entered the intersection. However, there were two left turn lanes and four SUVs to my right entered the intersection on red and sped up to get through the light as oncoming traffic almost trapped them in the intersection. Later that morning I heard of an accident at the same location between a pickup truck and an ambulance.

Yesterday morning an SUV went flying by me on my way to church, doing around 60 mph in a 45 mph zone. What could be so urgent on a Sunday morning?  I was even more surprised to see them turn into a church parking lot (not mine).

“But it’s just ‘speeding” (I can hear the refrain).  According to the National Coalition for Safer Roads (NCSR) nationwide, more than 3.7 million drivers ran a red light in 2014. In 2013, 697 people were killed and an estimated 127,000 were injured in car accidents involving red light running.

In Luke 16:10, we read, “"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

If you can’t be trusted to drive the posted speed limit and obey traffic signals, you can’t be trusted with anything else either.

It feels like the wild, wild west in our driving habits and in our personal lives. If we disagree with someone we show up in riot gear and weapons to “show them who is boss.”

There is no more discussion in society; everything is a confrontation planned well in advance to maximum the bloodshed and make the news.

We hear a different story in the Bible. Jesus said that He came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. (Matthew 5:17).

It is time for Christians to start living up to Jesus’ expectations.

Stop the bloodshed. Stop the lawlessness. Stop the revenge. Laws are there for a purpose, and the North already won the war over 150 years ago.

Blessings, my friend,
Agatha