Ray Li’s Blog

Near Death

I almost killed my dad and my cousin yesterday. We were driving home from work and both of them were sleeping. I had just gotten off the highway when the car locked and slowly drifted to a stop. It was pretty scary, something that had never happened before. I wrestled with the wheel but I could hardly move it.

Luckily, I was already on the left most lane so I drifted to a stop and put on the emergency lights. I realized then that Ihad run out of gas and had not noticed it. Having not driven in so long, it totally slipped my mind to check on gas. While we were sitting in the leftmost lane with the emergency lights on waiting for my mom to come, a car that was speeding a lot behind us tried to pull into another lane and collided with another car. Right before our eyes, an accident took place that would not have happened if I wasn’t there. One car slid to the right side of the lane with its front left side demolished. The other one also got busted and drifted to the left side of the lane a few hundred meters in front of us.

Luckily no one was hurt. But I was thinking, what if people died today? What if those cars flipped over and some people didn’t make it? Or…what if our car locked up a minute earlier while we were on the highway, with cars doing 70 mph? We could be dead.

I realized that being responsible for someone else’s death is a really weighty thing, I felt stunned and numb.

Materialism

I went to the mall two days ago to do Christmas shopping with my mom and my cousin. After we arrived home after several hours in the mall, I realized that a Gap bag with a gift I had bought was gone. I freaked out, jumped in the car, and sped back to the mall.

On getting to the mall, I ran to the book store where I was at earlier and also ran to the food court. No signs of the bag (duh). I was really ticked off, annoyed, and angry: “How could this be lost? Why didn’t mom take care of the bag? That’s a lot of money that’s gone.”

I asked a security guard riding on a little cart if he knew anything about the bag. He radioed in and said there was nothing. As I was walking toward another end of the mall, I asked another security guard. He said they would open the safe in the security office for me. As I went downstairs, I had to wait for one of the guys to bring keys. During that time, I got to chat with the security guards and see what’s been going on in their lives, if only for a little bit. And lo and behold, when the safe was opened, my bag was in there. Some lady had found it and gave it to them.

As I was driving back home, I realized how caught up in material things I was. While it is some concern to lose something that I paid a lot for (it would be strange to be flippant about it), at the same time I had completely lost sight of the gospel, of Jesus, and of the true value of life found in Him. I was so stressed and annoyed.

I’m really glad the bag got lost. Not only did God show me the ugliness of my heart, I had a chance to talk to some of the people at the mall (gotta love the workers). And God didn’t need to help me find that bag again, I didn’t deserve to find the bag again, I didn’t even deserve to make it alive back home after coming from the mall. Truly, we dangle on a thread above eternity by the sheer grace of God.

Summary

I feel like these are two examples of God’s grace smacking me around in my life, getting a hold of me even when I am being a fool. My absent mindedness has consequences. I can’t just brush it off. And I need to stop finding my hope in things that will fade away.