Yesterday, I was driving to Lowe’s. As I pulled into the parking spot, a cop stopped behind me. “He’s blocking my car”, I thought. Then he got out and walked to me and asked for my driver’s license. “Driver’s license?” I asked as I fished it out. “You know what you did?” he asked, and then pointed to the Lowe’s entrance. “You could not turn left into the entrance.” He was right. As I was pulling into Lowe’s, I noticed that the entrance was only for the other side, but noticed it too late so just pulled in. “I’ve already stopped 11 cars this morning for that” he added, “It’s a $150 fine.” Great, I thought, a money trap. He just sits there for easy picking and racks in the fine. During the entire time, I remained respectful and humble. I said, “Sorry, I didn’t see any signs.” “Yes, there’s a sign there” he replied, “Do you want me to write you up a ticket or are you going to remember?” I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought it was another trap. So I said, “Go ahead and print me a ticket.” I guessed I confused him this time, so he said “Let me ask again, do you want me to write you a ticket or should I let you go?” At this point, it dawned on me that maybe this was not a money trap and that he was willing to forgive me. So I said, “I guess let me go. I won’t do it again.” And then to my surprise he let me go. As I left Lowe’s, I went to check to see if there really was a sign, and yes there is, but not in a place where you’d ever notice it. It was on the right side of the road, but the turn into Lowe’s was to the left. Why would anyone look to the right to see if you can turn left. They should’ve place the sign next to the entrance.
Thinking about it afterwards, I thought it was a good example of our spiritual run-in with the law. When God judges us, it doesn’t matter if we know what the laws are or not. But instinctively, we do know what the laws are and that we’ve violated them. And it doesn’t matter if 11 billion people have also done the same thing. We are still guilty before the law.
If we humble ourselves before God, he can forgive us. But if we rationalize, justify, argue, be arrogant, God will not forgive us, but fine us. I’m pretty sure that if I had been disrespectful and argumentative, the policeman wouldv’e just given me a ticket without any option of mercy. But since I remained respectful, and even willing to be fined, he was willing to forgive me.