First Baptist Church of Herndon

Roadside Assistance

Linda Soller | Oct 27, 2014

You’re driving down the interstate highway and notice a minivan off on the side of the road. As you get closer you see the family standing down in the tall grasses, away from the traffic, staring at a flat tire on their heavily packed van. Fortunately, as you cruise by you notice someone in a truck has pulled over to help them out. Has this ever happened to you?  Maybe you were the owner of the van or maybe you were the person in the truck. More likely you were the person cruising by, glad someone else had stopped. I know, I know, it’s hard to safely pull off a busy highway. What if that lady holding the baby, surrounded by three other little children, was just setting a trap for you on the side of the busy highway? Maybe you have never had to change a tire, so what good could you have been anyway? That cell phone on the seat beside you, or more likely in your hand, might not get the reception you need to call for help. Does any of this sound familiar? It does to me. There have even been times when I’ve thought to myself, “That car hardly looks road worthy, I’m not surprised it broke down!” I’m not proud of thinking those thoughts, but I’ve had them.

Don’t misunderstand me, there truly are times when we may not be able to help. Obviously there is no need for every car on the road to pull over. What I’d like to know is what went through the mind of the person in the truck who stopped to help. He didn’t have much time to decide considering the speed of the cars on the highway. Did he think, what’s in it for me? I doubt that. Maybe he has a daily good deed goal, unlikely. My guess would be he thought in a split second, I can help. And maybe somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought, there is no reason why I shouldn’t stop and help. Whatever his thoughts, he acted upon them. Even if all he ended up doing was calling for further assistance, the family standing on the side of the road had his support.

It reminds me of the Bible story of the Good Samaritan. A victim lay beside the road, beaten and robbed. Travel was dangerous in those times, much like now. People walked past, some even crossed to the other side of the road to avoid the victim. If that wasn’t bad enough these people were the very ones society expected to be kind and caring, much like society’s expectations for Christian behavior. Maybe they were fearful. Stopping could have been dangerous for them, or maybe they just didn’t want to take the time. The reason why makes little difference, the result was the same, the victim lay injured and alone. So along comes this Samaritan, a person who held little esteem in society, who was not expected to do anything. Expectations can often be wrong. The Samaritan not only stopped and helped get the victim to a place where he could be cared for, he also arranged for continuing care. I wonder what went through his mind as he approached the scene of the crime. My guess is the same as before. He probably thought this human needs my help, I can help, and so he did.

In this journey we call life we will come across victims, we may be the victims. We’ll see good Samaritans helping, we may be the good Samaritans. We will consider each situation individually, which is only right. Sometimes our judgment call will fall short of what we expect of ourselves, and other times we’ll be satisfied that we responded appropriately. What we can know for sure is that we will rarely have a lot of time to ponder. The traffic on our road of life may be moving very quickly and pulling off, for however a short time, may be at worst dangerous and at best inconvenient. Our challenge is to return home each day thankful that we didn’t need a helping hand, grateful that we got one if needed, and confident we were ready to offer roadside assistance.

Have a great week!  :o)    Linda