Rage! Have you noticed?

I made a bad left turn. I admit it.

We had just finished a bike ride around a local reservoir with our ten-year-old grandson, Drew. Bikes were now loaded on the rack as we started our two mile drive back home.

Halfway back, I turned onto a four-lane road with light traffic. What I misjudged, however, was the speed of a black pickup barreling down the same lane. I couldn’t accelerate fast enough, and the driver had to slow down. To me, it seemed minor—we were approaching a stop sign just one block away. Still, it wasn’t my finest driving moment.

What happened next has lingered. The truck’s horn blared, long and loud. Then, as I turned right at the stop sign, I saw it: both driver and passenger with open windows, screaming, gesturing, seething with rage.

I rolled my window down, admitted my mistake, and said I was sorry. But no apology could disarm their wrath. My error had delayed them by no more than five seconds—yet it lit a fuse that burned away reason. To them, my mistake wasn’t just inconvenient. It was personal.

This didn’t happen in a rough neighborhood. It unfolded in a quiet subdivision, near schools and parks, on an ordinary afternoon. The two adults looked like anyone you might pass in a grocery store. Yet in an instant, they were consumed by fury.

And it struck me—rage is everywhere. It simmers beneath the surface, often erupting on the road. I feel it myself at times, when I interpret another driver’s move as a personal affront. But Paul reminds us:

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:22–24, ESV)

There’s no fine print. No exception clause for driving. A bad left turn. A front-row seat to rage. A renewed conviction to live with humility and Spirit-given self-control. This is the Jesus way. Always.