Stay in your lane in 2024

A phrase has been coming to my mind for 2024 as this year draws rapidly to an end: Stay in your lane. It may just be advice for me, but perhaps it might resonate for you. Most of us have experienced the irritation or even terror of being behind or near or opposite another driver when they start veering into our lane, often without any sign they were about to do so. In an extreme case it may cause us to have to go into the lane next to us or hit them head on, and a bad accident can ensue. Of course in some nations, like India where I have lived for over half my life, lanes are made to be crossed. But in those cases most everyone knows the rules, and the cars are going the same direction. Frankly I have been more worried driving in the USA on two lane highways, where literally people are trying to pass at high speeds and coming into my lane. Fortunately I have been able to escape serious accidents, though just this week there were several stories of people dying from someone passing another car and crossing into their lanes.

So in a basic sense, this phrase can mean either literally stay in your lane while driving (or an appropriate adaptation in the nation you are in), but also it means metaphorically to stay in the life and boundaries to which you are called. To me it means having a humility and self-awareness to know the season of life you are in, to embrace the limitations of that life, and to live in a contentment with the place God has called you. For me, approaching the age of 65 in a few months, it means something different than when I was 20, or 30, or 40. Embracing the season and joys as well as limitations of life brings a contentment in ‘staying in my lane’. Not having to do jobs or take roles I am not called to do, or trying to take over what others are doing because I think I can do it better.

It is important to also say what I don’t think this phrase means. Sometimes people have used this phrase as a rebuke to those that would speak truth to power, to have a prophetic function of truth telling. For example, in 2020-2021 during the covid pandemic, I spent the longest season of time in the USA I had spent since my early 20’s. Due to the context of societal unrest and political turmoil, I felt to post on Facebook my thoughts and also in my blog. Though most of the posts were not overtly political, they did raise the ire of friends, relatives and mission colleagues. A few people wrote me both publicly and privately with great passion, angry that I had raised my voice. They said I was being ‘political’ and that was not good for someone who was a ‘missionary’ or ‘pastor’. I should ‘stay in my lane’. But then I would see that they had no problem for those that had similar roles as I did and would comment on politics, as they had the same politics. It was more a matter of their agreement or lack of agreement with the person writing, than any conviction about not staying in a lane.

Staying in our lane does not mean not speaking out when we see injustice, or having different opinions than those in power. There are certainly times when we need to speak up even if it is not our area of expertise. But when we do that it should be with a humility, and even perhaps an acknowledgment that we may not know best and are willing to be corrected. If I see abuse happening in my organization or in a situation around me, I want to and must speak out, even if I am not an expert in trauma or abuse.

Staying in our lane means that we drive our car of life in an awareness of those around us. In kindness and love, not causing harm by speeding too fast or treating others with disdain or condescension. In the USA, India, and other nations, 2024 is an election year. There are many potentialities ahead for car crashes of life, of people in arrogance crossing over into other lanes and causing accidents. We need a new baptism of humility and kindness this coming year, especially for those of us who name the name of Christ.

I will keep speaking out in 2024 for those things I believe in, even at times if it is not in my ‘lane’. But I also want to stay in my lane in terms of my calling and destiny, having a humility to embrace my limitations and love others even in their limitations.

It’s going to be a wild ride of a year. Buckle up, stay in your lane and enjoy the ride.

5 thoughts on “Stay in your lane in 2024”

  1. Good word at a good time Steve. As I’m pondering this coming year there is the tension between the new and the closure (or not). As well as speaking out in regards to RH and the tensions we are feeling as UofN. Like you said it’s not pulling my head in and sticking it in the sand, but also the wisdom of when and how to raise concerns. Look forward to continuing the journey.

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  3. Hello! I used to live in Thailand, I moved there from England a few weeks after the tsunami and stuck around for 12 years. Fortunately they drive on the left too, most of the time, but that’s where similarities end. It took me about 6 months as a passenger before I felt confident enough to do battle with the madness! The English are very safe drivers for the most part. Everyone got bored sitting in traffic jams around London in the 80s, dying of leaded petrol fumes and getting nowhere, so everyone got sensible and it all moved better. In Thailand, random stuff goes on. There are what I call the Indian Lorries that come up behind you at night looking like that scene in Close Encounters when he first gets buzzed by the aliens – every light colour on them except white! Then there are all manner of things left in the road or by it. There is also the habit at funerals to put all the seats and some of the awnings for the wake in the road, which then becomes filled with drunk, sad looking people. Then there are the botch-made motorbikes and sidecars piled up with more stuff than most of the pickups. Some of them are restaurants on wheels, with charcoal grills cooking chicken over big orange cannisters of liquid gas! I saw one piled up with cardboard maybe 10 feet high, with a collie dog on top chasing its tail in circles as it sped down the road! English traffic cops must go there and weep with joy and despair! I saw 10 people on a Honda Wave moped once, two of them babies in buckets dangling from the handlebars. As to keeping to lanes, no one does that. If the road is relatively empty, it is best just to drive down the middle high part, especially when it is raining tropical monsoon rain or at night, when random unlit things like ant hills and lightless pickups coming the wrong way down the road in the fast lane can suddenly appear. If it is relatively busy, likelihood is that there traffic is three deep when there is only two lanes anyway, and the Thais haven’t invented the overpass or roundabout yet, so fast roads can suddenly become snarled up madness as queues form in the right hand lane looking to turn right. In Thailand, breaking the law IS the law! Expect the unexpected and thank Buddha when you arrive safely home after every trip! It’s a jungle out there, quite literally! Now I am back in England, both the real and metaphoric roads are so dull, the biggest danger is forgetting there is real danger out therer and falling asleep to it…

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    1. Thanks for writing, Nick. Your reflections and remembrances of life in Thailand brought back so many of my own memories, some of them similar. I was just there again in March, and so love Thailand.

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