Some time ago I got a foldable bike from our son Gerrit. That is very practical, because I can take it with me on the train when I go to Hatvan every week, where I work together with the CHE team of Hungary.
In the morning at seven I take the train, but first I have to take the bike to the railway station. Now, you need to know that riding a bike in the city in Hungary is in no way comparable to riding a bike in Holland. There are hardly any bike roads, so you need to choose between the side walk – where pedestrians scold you for riding in the sidewalk – or the road, where cars go by with sometimes 60 or 70 km/h and honk the horn at you because they think you don’t belong there.
That morning I had chosen for the road to ride on, when suddenly a car came from a side road and nearly bumped into my little bike. The driver started making gestures like ‘what are you doing here?’, pulled down the window and started yelling at me whether I didn’t see that he was driving a car?! Everything started boiling inside of me, that such a lout nearly runs me over and then acts as if it is my fault. As if I were not allowed to ride there, not allowed to be there.
And this was definitly not the first time. Almost every week, but surely every month we have this kind of ‘near death’ experience in traffic. My anger started to turn against everything and everyone in Hungary: what a rotten country this is, what a rotten mentality here, why am still here anyway?!
In the last church service in December the wife of our pastor handed out bracelets to everyone with a little paper next to it: ‘Pray for your enemies’, with the Bible verse from Matthew 5,44: on it: “Love your enemies, bless thos who curse you; do well to those that hate you and pray for those that insult and persecute you”.
When I was on the train, I saw that bracelet on my wrist, and I was reminded of this verse. I didn’t want to pray for this traffic lout at all, let alone bless him. But why am I here actually? To serve God’s Kingdom. And that does not come by force or might, but by servanthood. So, with clenched jaws I prayed in silence: All right then Lord, please bless this guy. Amen!
My anger disappeared, and I realised how humanly I had reacted. Understandably, but not spiritually. In order to hold on here I need more than just my own human good will, because that runs out pretty quickly.
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