Getting in the way of oncoming traffic can be dangerous, especially if that oncoming traffic is me. Over the course of my life, I have run over a few things. I have splattered countless bugs on the windshield, perhaps squished a frog or two, and quite probably crushed a poor turtle. I remember hitting a squirrel, a bat, something I still don’t know what it was, and . . . my sister. Yes, I have run over my sister. Fortunately for her, I was driving my bike at the time, so she survived. The squirrel did not fair so well against a 1970 Ford Mustang.
Me & Sam walking a gravel trail.
Running over something gives me a bad feeling. It’s like I’m bigger, stronger, faster, and the poor little victim didn’t have a chance. It makes me feel like I was somehow careless. But in most instances, that is simply not the case. I know. I have to keep reminding my sister that.
Megan was only about two or three years old when it happened. I was five or six. I was just learning to ride a bike and she was still fine tuning the art of getting around on two legs. Unfortunately, we both decided to practice in the driveway. I was riding my bike along the middle of the driveway; she was walking down it.
As I recall, it was just an old gravel driveway with a hump of grass growing in the middle. Of course, this represented an extra challenge for an inexperienced bike rider, as the gravel and humps of grass made it difficult to steer. Honestly, I was afraid to turn. I was barely keeping the bike upright, sure that one little turn to the right or left would literally be my downfall. So as I concentrated all my efforts on keeping my little self on a large bike in the middle of the driveway, I looked up. There was my sister, walking down the middle of the driveway.
I hollared “Move out of the way!” Little Megan looked back at me, then turned and started running . . . right down the middle of the driveway. “Move!” I screamed. Her little legs were pumping as fast as they could, but I was quickly gaining ground on her baby backside. I refused to try to turn. She could not do anything but run down the middle of the driveway. Eventually, I bumped her, she fell, and from toe to head, I ran over her. Poor little sister. If she had only stepped to the side.
I remember wondering why she didn’t run the other way. Why didn’t she step aside? Having grown a little older, and perhaps wisened a bit by having three kids of my own, I realize it’s because she was young. She only knew to stay on the path. She didn’t even consider changing course.
Yesterday, I read about a couple of guys who did the same thing. They were young Christians and had been given a course to follow. They were simply telling the story of Jesus. The Powers of the day commanded them to stop. Peter and John said, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Peter and John did not even consider turning from the course Jesus had set for them. It was the only way they could go, even if it meant being run over. They didn’t scream. They didn’t fight. They simply kept going down the path; moving even faster. They had the “Megan” attitude. Run me over if you have to, but I can’t even consider changing course.
But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves, saying, “What shall we do to these men? For, indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. “But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them, that from now on they speak to no man in this name.” And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”
– Acts 4:15-20