Guilty of Speeding to Church?

My hands gripped the steering wheel as I cast a brief glance at the dashboard clock, 3:45 P.M. and I was still several miles from home and my church. My mind flashed back to the Sunday morning that I had felt an internal nudge from the Holy Spirit to answer the call for help with the Thursday, after school program, Bible Buddies. That nudge to do service work is familiar, but I knew time was a factor in my reaching the church to help with the program. My job is about nineteen miles from the church.

Every morning and afternoon for nine years, I drove the nineteen miles of twisting, turning county road that lay between home and work. The drive took about twenty-five minutes IF slow drivers, loose cattle, deer, turkey and weather did not create an obstacle. Obstacles could stretch the time it took to drive the nineteen miles into forty minutes. 

Today, I left the employee parking lot at exactly 3:31 P.M. and had encountered zero obstacles. Anxious to arrive on time at 4:00 P.M., I knew that I had covered half of the distance already. A quick, internal prayer, "Thank-you, Lord for keeping obstacles out of my path." was in my thoughts when a brief look at the speedometer made my right foot instantly lift off the gas pedal. The speedometer needle descended to the speed limit, 55 mph.

A quirky thought appeared in my mind," I wonder how many Christians are guilty of breaking the speed limit to arrive at church on time?" Instantly, my heart and spirit soared with laughter. 

The dashboard clock read 3:55 P.M. as I parked beside the church building, five minutes

early.