About four weeks ago I loaded my family up in the van and we headed to Costco to pick up some groceries and other sundries. We weren’t but a few blocks from the house when I saw out of the corner of my eye a police car that we had just passed by, whip around and position himself behind us with his lights flashing. I immediately pulled over to the curb and knew already what was going on. I announced to the family, that I was speeding.
The officer confirmed my suspicion at my window and informed me that I was going ten miles per hour over the posted speed limit. He asked for my license and proof of insurance which I had ready to hand to him. As he was walking back to his car, he stopped and returned to my window and asked me if the address on my driver’s license was correct. It wasn’t. I know you’re supposed to get the address changed within 30 days of it changing but I never thought it was a big deal. Now I was going to get two tickets at once. I wasn’t excited about this at all.
I haven’t had a ticket in over ten years, probably close to 12 years if memory serves, so I was none too excited about the prospect of tarnishing my nice clean record. A bigger issue for me, however, was the reality that getting a speeding ticket was going to take away the ability for me to drive our church vehicles which I do on a semi regular basis. This would have been very inconvenient for my work and my coworkers as well. Something that I would have formerly been able to take care of myself, I would now have to rely on others to do for me because of my own foolishness.
The officer came back to my window and handed back my license and insurance information and began to explain to me that it is against the law to have the wrong address on your driver’s license. Then came the best news. He wasn’t giving me a ticket for speeding, just for the inaccurate driver’s license, because, he said, “It’s cheaper that way”. This was great. So with not getting the speeding ticket I expected, I was still going to be able to drive the church vans, plus the ticket I did get was going to be cheaper than the speeding ticket would have been. We praised God on the spot for his grace, as well as the grace poured out toward me from the police officer. The officer looked in at my kids in the van and then at me and said, “You should know better.” He was right. I did know better, I wasn’t paying attention and I should have been.
With a renewed sense of the fear of God (and policemen) in my heart we drove very carefully on our way to Costco. I decided that I was going to have the family present for the entirety of the experience since they were with me at the start of it. I think it’s very important to grab onto teachable moments like this, and its easy to let civic duty and embarrassing situations get swept under the rug.
We like to hide sin. John 3:19-21 explains this. When I love sin, I live in it. God is too great, and his grace too amazing to dwell in the darkness. I love him and so I run to the light when confronted with sin. My sin this day was not obeying the law of the land, and I was being held accountable to it. So, the question for myself became, “How do I glorify God in this situation?” The answer was simple. “Show my family that God is greater than my pride, he’s triumphed over my sin, and he is a just God. My actions have consequences and I’m willing to face them.”
The next week, we went in and got our driver’s license information updated where Paula found out that her driver’s license hasn’t been updated for two moves! We then we all went to the county Traffic Division to pay my fine. As the County Clerk was handing me the paper work to sign she began explaining to me what it was I was doing in signing. I was pleading guilty to the charge listed on the citation, and would be agreeing to pay the fine of $100. This was good news, because the officer only gave me one ticket, meant it meant I only had one fine to pay, and the fine for the driver’s license was cheaper than the speeding ticket, though only by $20, mind you. I was about to sign my guilty plea when the County Clerk informed me that I was pleading guilty to a misdemeanor crime. A speeding ticket is a petty misdemeanor and carries with it no criminal record, but a full misdemeanor, however, does carry a record with it. If I signed this paper I would be obligated to tell the world from here on out, I am a criminal. Specifically, any job application I ever filled out I would have to say, that yes, I have been found guilty of a crime.
I didn’t like this idea. So I didn’t sign.
To be continued…