Earlier this week my wife and I returned home from a visit with her family in the Austin area. About halfway home we reached a typical small Teas town and the speed limit dropped to 45 MPH. I slowed and we continued on our way, enjoying our time and conversation with one another. I saw the police officer on the right facing our direction and a feeling of gratitude washed over me. I am not the man that I used to be. The sight of an officer paroling doesn't cause panic, because I don't have the heavy foot I once did and I never have the illegal contraband on me or in the vehicle I once had when under the grips of addiction. Also, the only influence I drive under these days is that of the Holy Spirit. So I don't worry when I see a cop, and it's something that I feel grateful for.
But as I passed the officer, he pulled out onto the road behind me. There was a time when this would have freaked me out quite badly, but now it was a momentary what on earth? and then relaxing because I knew I was clean, legal and obeying the law. I even had my seat belt on. We stopped at a red light, and I simply kept talking with Leah, not thinking about the officer behind me. But when the light turned green and we both began to move forward again, His lights began to flash. He had targeted me after all. I pulled into a nearby parking lot, retrieving my wallet and license in the process and stopped with my hands in clear view, the car in park and the window rolled down. A few seconds later Leah and I learned that we had both failed to notice that we were driving through a school zone. I thought I was good, within the law and with no need to worry about being pulled over. But instead of driving two miles an hour under the speed limit, I had been eight miles and hour over and in a school zone.
Ok, I'll have to do something to make it right, either pay the ticket or take defensive driving. I'll have to trust God to take care of us as we just effectively spent money we really didn't have to spend. Either way I handle things, that failure to notice the situation correctly cost us close to $200. But I knew that it was OK. I stayed calm. There was never any fear, and I didn't get angry. I could still see the hand of God on my life making things right. The officer was very professional and handled the situation well. He thanked me for my courtesy and cooperation and I told him to stay safe out there as he walked back to his patrol car. I had made a mistake and been in the wrong. It wasn't major and things would be OK. That's positive.
But what if I had insisted that everything was good, that I had no reason to be pulled over to the point where I refuse to stop because I just knew his lights were not meant for me? Suddenly a minor incident would turn into a major one. That would not have been good no matter what spin my positive thinking put on it. Now that may seem a bit extreme, but while we may never do such a thing as go that far with an officer flashing his lights, we do it all too often with God.
It's good to focus on His love, grace and that we are forgiven. It's good to remember that He loves us as we are and not as we should be. When we mess up, we should have confidence that we are forgiven, He still loves and has not and will not reject us or turn His back on us for our mistake. We need to have full confidence that we can quickly turn back to Him and that like the Prodigal Father He will welcome us home, clean us up and rejoice over our return to relationship. But we need to understand we messed up, that we got off track.
We have to accept our mistake, to see where we got it wrong and accept that we were outside His will, even if we hadn't originally seen the spiritual zoning change. If we positive think our way out of the reality of that, it doesn't keep us from feeling condemnation. It prevents us from seeing truth and make the changes that need to be made. We will not be more careful in the future to watch for the warning signs of the zone changes in unfamiliar places. We will trust our own righteousness and not lean on His. Positive is good, but it's not good to say I'm OK and you're OK when we're not. Condemnation is removed and prevented by grace not by denial or refusing to see reality.
Today let us be positive about His love and grace but not delusional about it. Let us be quick to acknowledge His authority and trust His view of things over our judgement of things and let Him pull us over and correct us and return us to right quickly before we get too far off track.
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