Why are people so STUPID?!

Why are people so STUPID?! This isn’t a hardened post: I’m legitimately serious and writing it seconds after an experience just happened. So, we are driving down the highway. My wife swerves to miss an object in the road. As we examine, via the rear view mirrors, we put the pieces together. We’re headed north. In the southbound lane of this major highway, a car is parked. Lots of traffic on both sides. A lady stands in the median with cars whizzing by. She evidently crossed her southbound lane of traffic to get into the median. In the northbound lane where we swerved, was her dead dog—already hit by a northbound vehicle in front of us. The lady stands in the median looking at her dead pet and wondering how she will save it; jeopardizing her own life because of her dog. I’m incensed. I don’t know what is more stupid?! That she let her dog out on a busy interstate highway? That the beautiful little dog was killed because of her idiocy? That she was stupidly crossing 75mph traffic to chase her now-dead dog? Or that she was considering how to avoid rush hour traffic to run out in the northbound traffic to retrieve the corpse of her now-gone friend? Where is the logic in any of this? Seriously? None of this would have happened if she had watched the road signs, merely driven two more miles and gotten off the highway at a point of safety, and yet because of her busyness and stupid decision-making skills, her dog is dead and her life is in jeopardy.


Maybe you feel like I’m being harsh and uncaring. I’m not. I love dogs—I have two of my own; I love people—I have a wife, two kids, family, friends. No…I’m asking, how can we be presented with myriad different warning signs and never take them into account? How can we keep going despite all the warnings? I’m angry and tearful because I see myself and others in that lady's life right now.  I'm very, very sad for her; I hurt for her.  It's done.  There is nothing I can do, and the loss is senseless!  I hurt because I see people deciding like the lady in the median when it comes to their own dependence on Jesus. Because we want to keep control of our own lives, we ignore so many signs that exist, so many warnings, even disregarding our own intrinsic fear of death to keep control now. Person after person ignores Jesus, all He’s done and all He's said, and puts him- or herself in the same deadly circumstances as the lady in the median: by selfishness, choosing to lose what is precious and then, while trying to stay in control, choosing to put one's own life in jeopardy as well. God help us to be smarter in this life and not to be stupid with our eternity. If the lady in the median could do it all over again, I know she would pick a different decision; but, it’s too late for her—it’s over.

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