“To Protect and Serve”

While driving my wife, Windy, to the Portland airport from McMinnville (about an hour’s drive)  at 3:30am on a rainy Thursday morning, I was pulled over by a Portland police officer about 5 minutes from my destination. As I pulled over and waited for the officer to walk to my window, I wondered what I had done to get his attention. Yes, it was dark, rainy, and maybe I was going a little fast. Maybe it was because when I exited the off ramp I had issues with choosing a lane. Oh, well, I was stopped and would surely find out shortly.

Well, when the officer arrived, not at my window, but at Windy’s, his first words were “I’ve been on patrol since 10am yesterday morning so…” Then he explained that I had failed to signal on several lane changes, and that with the rain there might be standing water, so I might want to watch my speed as I was traveling at 65 mph and that I didn’t want to be “that guy”, you know, the “guy” we all complain about the way he’s driving in weather like this. He then walked back to his patrol car with my license and said he’d return in a few minutes.

Fortunately, I did not receive a ticket. He praised my driving record – one ticket for running a red light caught on an automatic “red light camera” like 7 years ago, and said to just pay attention to the weather, road conditions, and speed I was driving. Nothing’s worth risking our safety and my good driving record.

So, after I exhaled I said, “Thank you God for not giving me a ticket.” I then dropped Windy at the airport and returned home.

It was only later that I put 2 and 2 together and thought –

“Isn’t God a lot like that police officer?” Let me explain…

The job of a police officer is to enforce the laws. If you obey the laws, your interactions with the police are generally because you seek them or need them for something  – like when you have a traffic accident or are lost and need directions. Now, when you break the laws (that is, stray from the path) and are stopped by an officer, it’s their duty to inform you of the error in your way and get you “back in line” with the laws. Sometimes there are fines. Sometimes there are warnings, but either way you’ve been made aware of your mistakes, change your behavior and “fall back in line” again.

Our God works the same way!

In life, we’re all on a path. We don’t know where it is going. We don’t know where it will lead us. All we know is that if we stay on the path God has for us, we’ll be “ok”.

So, what do we do?

We’re only human (and full of sin), so we stray from His path. We are such idiots!

But, what does He do?

He allows us to wander, far and away from Him and His path for us.. We may wander for days, weeks, months or even  40 years like Moses, but He never stops loving us or supplying our needs. He knows we’ll return to Him. He knows we’ll discover we need Him.  And you know what – He will be there, with arms wide open ready to embrace us like we had never left.

Amazing, isn’t it?

It’s called “grace”. God has more grace “allotted” for you than you’ll ever need.

How much grace do you exercise towards your fellow man?

How would imparting grace into the life of those around you affect not only you, but them?

Grace is like sugar – a little bit goes a long way.

Sweeten someone’s life today; show them a little grace.