Where’s a cop when you need one?

That’s what springs swiftly to mind when something like what happened last night happens to me. We were driving along doing the speed limit when a truck with lots of bright lights – both high and low fog lights – came up rapidly from behind blinding us. Not content to simply make it difficult for us to see, the goofball roared up close to my bumper trying to intimidate us out of the way. Unfortunately for them, after a half mile or so of this behavior, we came to a red light and they had to stop behind us. However, rules don’t apply to them! The teenage boys (we then noted) zoomed around us, through the right turn only lane, through the red light, and blitzed on into the night.

Oh how I wish a policeman had been right there to nab him! They did us wrong! He deserved losing his license or at least a lot of painful fines to make him think about what he was doing next time! Easy to see how one might think that, huh? Where’s the justice in this world! These people need slapped down! Book ‘em, Dano!

And yet, as I turned at the next red light w/o signaling am I any better? Why shouldn’t I have been nabbed when I did that “New England Stop” as I slowed down but rolled on past the stop sign at that four way intersection the day before? How about last Lord’s day when I was a bit late for services and edged up just a little over the speed limit so I could get there on time? Or that u-turn I made at the intersection that I’d always done for years that just got a new sign put up? (That doesn’t apply to me, I “own” this chunk of pavement!) And the seat belt is so constricting, I didn’t want it to wrinkle my clothes so I just didn’t wear it.

Easy to overlook when it’s us, isn’t it? People think what’s the harm, I’m not hurting anybody. My wearing or not wearing a seat belt only effects me. I would have come to a complete stop instead of rolling through if I had seen a car coming the other way. Better to break the law than be late for church, God expects me to obey him rather than man’s ordinances. And signaling, that’s for wimps!

The thing is we must be very, VERY careful not to do the same thing with God’s word. We know murder is wrong and hateful bigotry is wrong. How about those who viciously lie? What about arrogance, fighting, and anger? Easy enough.

Yet what about saying we’ll do something then not? What about unkind words, or repeating what someone did to “wrong” us? How about being “too busy” to help someone until someone else makes us a better offer because we don’t like that person? Maybe we know folks are offended at something we think is harmless and we go right ahead and do it, because we think we have a “right” to do it? What’s the harm, we’re not hurting anybody, right?

And yet, big or small, we broke the law. In this world the policeman may decide what we’ve done is forgivable by society, and lets us off with a warning. That’s not justice, that’s mercy. We deserve the fine, yet it is overlooked. In God’s view of things, if we seek forgiveness from God we can also be forgiven. That doesn’t make the wrong right, it is simply mercy and God’s grace, in the same way. When I wanted to know where the cop was when I needed him, it’s because I had decided that the two knuckleheads driving the truck were not worthy of any mercy from society – in fact I was usurping the role of the policeman. That mercy is not mine to give or take. And when I decide that my little sins aren’t all that big a deal, I am usurping God’s role, deciding that I am worthy of his mercy and should get it. That is also not mine to give or take.

But I do know this – if I extend mercy to those who have wronged me, when I am indeed the one in some situation who is the lawful dispenser of grace and mercy, then God will likewise be merciful to me when I run afoul of his laws. I must be careful, because when someone “does me wrong”, when they deserve punishment, when I open my mouth to condemn them, I should remember that whatever judgment is applied to them, on my behalf, will be applied to me in full measure as well. When it comes to God’s law, where’s a cop when I need one? He’s on the scene, and justice will be served. Yet when Jesus himself was refused, James and John wanted him to “command fire to come down from heaven and consume them.” He rebuked them! The Lord however reminded them he’d come not to destroy men but to save them. There’s the mercy of God; where’s ours?

Randy