During the early morning sunrise, the shiny red car pulled out of the police station and stopped at the light in front of me. The brightness of the red attracted my attention as well as the glistening frost on the taillights. Watching the burly man driving the car, I thought he looked like a police officer I would want driving around my neighborhood – keeping my streets safe. The timing was right for this man to be going home from the midnight shift.
I’m not quite sure why I kept my eye on the car. We both turned left onto the main street. I was surprised to notice the other driver speeding from one red traffic light to the next. He swerved between lanes to get out in front of traffic. After a mile or two, even after we turned right onto the freeway, he attempted to pass a car and a slower moving truck. Merging into the left lane, his car was quickly out of sight as he sped along.
I wondered if this was a police officer. For anyone watching, the driver wasn’t setting the best of examples. Should a police officer have been in the vicinity, I’m sure there would have been several infractions for which tickets might have been issued.
For a second I was the driver of that car eager to get home after a long night shift, thinking about how nice it would feel to stretch out in bed, close my eyes and fall into a blissful and much needed sleep. Perhaps I might even have been hoping for a few minutes with my kids before they left for school.
I realized how unaware I might have been that someone had seen me pull out of the precinct lot unaware that someone was connecting my driving behavior with my profession, unaware that I was setting a poor example. Suddenly I stopped the supposing as I wondered how many times someone has been watching me when I am unaware.
That red car speeding off into the distance was a good reminder that people are always watching. We may be enjoying the anonymity of our car, standing in the grocer’s check out line or eating dinner at the local restaurant. Whether we think so or not, people are noticing us. Maybe only for a moment; maybe long enough to draw some conclusions. [Tweet “The question is what image are we portraying?”] Are our erratic, thoughtless actions leaving people with a bad impression? Or does our behavior reflect the image and love of Christ as He works in our lives?