My Run-In with the Law...and God

"Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

--Matthew 7:21  

I’ve had a lot of really great experiences in my life, many of which have been spiritual in nature. I don’t think I’ve ever shared one of my more spiritual experiences on this blog yet, but I figure it’s high time. If you don’t appreciate this kind of thing, I give you fair warning: it’s about to get a little spiritual in here. :)

My youngest son is a competitive gymnast and sometimes has meets out of state. One of these meets was in a town about 2 hours from our home. The meet started at 10am, but there was an important hour long warm up beforehand; so we planned to be there at 9am.

We woke up on time, but through a series of unfortunate circumstances, we did not get on the road until 7:45am, which only gave us an hour and 15 minutes to make the 2 hour drive. But I didn’t despair. I was confident I could make up at least a half an hour by speeding a little. By my calculations, we’d only be about 15 minutes late for warm-up; annoying but acceptable. But we could NOT be any later than that!

Well, my calculations didn’t account for weekend traffic. Even though I had my cruise control set 10mph over the speed limit, I was still 30 miles away from our destination at 9:30am when the coach started texting me. Forget the warm-up, we might not even make the 10am start time! And if we weren’t there when the meet started, he wouldn’t be able to compete.

Feeling the pressure from the coach and not wanting the drive to be in vain, I set my cruise control up another 5mph and hoped for the best. Then when I was still about 10-15 miles from our destination at 9:45am, I set the cruise control up to 100mph for good measure.

Well, I’m not accustomed to driving that fast, so after a few miles, I started to feel extremely unsafe (ya think?). So, I did what I usually do when I feel that way: I said a prayer and asked for safety.

No sooner had I thought the request in my head – I don’t even think I finished my request – when an answer came clearly, almost audibly, and in a matter-of-fact tone:

“I can’t keep you safe if you don’t obey the law.”

Then I started rationalizing. But I’m late! The meet starts in 15 minutes and I’m only like 5 miles from my exit! Surely such a short distance at this speed can’t make that much difference. No, I’m fine. I’m fine.

I heard a VERY quiet, “Okay…”

And then I was immediately pulled over. Seriously, from the time I felt unsafe to the time I got pulled over was probably less than 3 minutes. Had I pressed on my break when I heard the I-can’t-keep-you-safe comment, I definitely would have avoided a speeding ticket….5 MILES from my exit at 9:45am. I mean, I could practically SEE the exit!

The police officer was very nice to both my son and I. She said she clocked me at 92 miles an hour in an 80mph zone (I was luckily climbing a hill when she clocked me, or I would have been going much faster…a fact which I obviously didn’t mention). But she only gave me a ticket for 5 miles over ($90). She was also thankfully very fast. She wished my son luck at his meet and we were driving away at 9:50am.

We showed up at the gym – which was thankfully right off the freeway – at 9:55am, and my son was able to hustle through a warm up before the meet started.

It all worked out in the end and I wish I hadn’t had to pay a $90 ticket. But on one level, I’m kind of glad it all happened because it has been a great lesson for me; one that I have often reflected back on in tempting moments. 

The Lesson: If you want blessings, first utilize the first level of protection: 

OBEY THE LAW!

Whether it's the law of the land, or a law of God (commandments, etc.)...the same principle applies.

Related Posts:

C.S. Lewis Sunday: Love is More than Kindness

The Freedom Paradox

Two Glasses of Water

Pleasure vs. Happiness

Happiness and Ice Cream

C.S. Lewis Sunday - Rules and Excuses

"Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson. A nation may say treaties don't matter; but then, next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one. But if treaties do not matter, and if there is no such thing as Right and Wrong -- in other words, if there is no Law of Nature -- what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one? Have they not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?

"It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table.

"I hope you will not misunderstand what I am going to say. I am not preaching, and Heaven knows I do not pretend to be better than anyone else. I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us. That time you were so unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money -- the one you have almost forgotten -- came when you were very hard-up. And what you promised to do for old So-and-so and have never done -- well, you never would have promised if you had known how frightfully busy you were going to be. And as for your behaviour to your wife (or husband) or sister (or brother) if I knew how irritating they could be, I would not wonder at it -- and who the dickens am I, anyway? I am just the same. That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm.  The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much -- we feel the Rule of Law pressing on us so -- that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behaviour that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves."

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Tag, You're It!

"The more laws and restrictions there are,

the more people are impoverished.

The sharper men's weapons,

the more trouble in the land.

The more artful and crafty the plan,

the stranger the outcome.

The more authoritarian a system,

the more outlaws appear.

Yet, if I take no action, people are reformed.

If I enjoy peace, people become honest.

If I do nothing, people become rich.

If I do not impose myself upon people,

they become themselves.

--Lao Tsu

Tao Te Ching, 57th verse

Do you remember when you played Tag as a kid? Did you ever play with kids so bent on being in charge and/or winning that they kept making rules? Maybe you were that kid--I know I was a couple times. It starts out relatively harmless but before you know it, no one can even play the game!

No running outside the lines. No moving once you’re tagged. If you run in a circle, you’re automatically out, etc. The rules can get pretty outlandish!

Then it dawns on you. If everyone obeys all these ridiculous rules, no one can even move! So, first you try cheating a little here and there, but even that isn’t very fun. Any time you make a move someone shouts, “That doesn’t count, you cheated!”

Before you know it, everyone is reminiscing about the good-old, original game of Tag. You know, when the game was actually enjoyable. And finally there’s a collective decision to drop all the new rules and get back to playing and having fun.

I think that’s the point of the quote. An overabundance of rules and/or controls set up to shield yourself or others from problems can seriously limit enjoyment, increase resentment, and even create criminals and cheating. But when you let things be, no one has to resent the imposed limitations; no one feels the need to cheat; everyone is free to be themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we need to eliminate rules all together. Take the Tag analogy for example, if there were NO rules, there wouldn’t even BE a game! And I’m certainly not suggesting that the ONLY reason there are criminals and cheaters is because of the overabundance of rules. Some people cheat and raise mayhem from the get-go.

But sometimes don’t you think we’d all be better off if we all just went back to the good-old, original game?

Maybe every problem we encounter doesn’t need an immediate solution. Maybe somebody doesn’t have to pay every time something goes wrong. Maybe we can just enjoy life instead of trying so hard to mold the game to our benefit. In the end, isn’t the possibility of being tagged and taking turns being ‘it’ what makes the game fun?

Let it be. “The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem." --Theodore Rubin

Related Posts:

C.S. Lewis Sunday: Progress

C.S. Lewis Sunday - Resistance: The Measure of Strength
The Freedom Paradox 
C.S. Lewis Sunday – Morality and Peace
C.S. Lewis Sunday - Fuel