Repent you sinner

I was driving along heading to Lexington Kentucky minding my own business one fine day when I noticed a blue light flashing in my rear view mirror. I pulled over and a stern faced trooper adorned in his black “county-mounty” hat and Maui Jim aviator style sunglasses stalked up to the car and told me that I was clocked at 89 miles per hour on his radar unit. My radar detector was not even flashing or beeping and I mentioned that fact to him. He smiled and said, “Oh that one you have is old technology, we use lasers now and your detector does not pick up that bandwidth”, he gave me a haughty little smirk along with my ticket and told me to have a “nice day”. “Yeah right!”

I was still smoldering from that trooper smirking at me and hearing his remarks about my “old technology”, and the very next day I went to Best Buy and asked to speak to the manager of the electronics department. I related to him that I was in the market for the absolute best radar detector known to mankind. I told him that price was not an object. He directed me to a glass case which housed a radar detector that looked like it had come out of one of the space ships on Star Trek. He unlocked the case where that baby was securely stored and placed it on the counter where we could both get a better look and admire it. He beamed that the company that manufactured it was the same company that actually made the radar units that the cops used and it would detect any radar/laser unit on the market – guaranteed. “Oh yeah”, I told him, “Ring that bad-boy up”, and then I joked to him, “And while you are at it beam me up”. We both laughed heartily and he smiled an extra large toothy smile as he took my credit card and rang up the several hundred dollar purchase.

I went home and installed it and it was so large that it seemed like it occupied approximately 25% of my windshield. It had rows of flashing green lights going back and forth and chirped like a songbird and was appropriately painted jet black. The sleek lines of it looked really cool and it reminded me of something one would see in a stealth fighter jet cockpit. I felt good.

The next afternoon I decided to go visit our eldest son who was attending college in Athens at the University of Georgia, (Go Dawgs!). I was cruising down the fast lane and just as I topped a hill, I encountered a Highway patrol car in the fast lane going the opposite direction. Immediately my state of the art radar/laser detector went off; unfortunately so did the Highway patrolman’s radar unit that he had turned on as he cruised down the road in the fast lane on the other side. He turned around and crossed over the median and here he came, blue lights flashing. I had been cruising at 105; another ticket another smirk – another, “Have a nice day” – another “Yeah right!”

I may have been down, but I was not beaten or anywhere near being “out”. I attributed my latest misfortune to the learning curve of how to use my radar detector properly. I said to myself, “OK I will avoid staying in the fast lane, I will slow down on hills and then speed up again when the coast is clear” problem solved.

The following weekend my wife and I were traveling in Alabama. I stopped and got gas and when I returned to the expressway I marveled at the sun as it barely began peeking its orange face above the horizon, there was hardly a car on the road at this time of morning. I took off like a scalded rabbit, determined to make good time on the nearly deserted expressway life was good. I jettisoned past one or two cars and quickly moved back over to the “slow” lane to avoid detection and was blasting down a long straightaway with no hills in sight. I let ‘er “rip”. “Cool”, I thought, “No cops in sight”.

Suddenly my radar detector went berserk; I looked down and all of the lights on my unit were no longer moving back and forth and displaying their normal pleasant green color, but instead all were locked down solid red and the songbird chirp was instead replaced by a loud irritating HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! I looked in my rear view mirror and to my chagrin in the far distance blue lights were flashing and approaching fast. I immediately slowed down and began shaking my sleeping wife and asked her what the speed limit was; “Huh?” she sleepily muttered. (How dumb was that?)

The trooper walked up to the car and I was embarrassed by the loud blaring honking noise that my detector was making, but I could not figure out how to shut it up. He said, “Would you please step out of the car”. I solemnly followed him like a little boy heading for the woodshed back to his “unmarked” car. As we passed it I thought, “Uh oh”, my new strategy did not include watching for ‘unmarked’ cars”.

When we got in the car, he turned to me and asked, “What is your hurry?” I mustered the most innocent face that I could and sheepishly said, “Sir?” He told me that I was doing well over a hundred. I looked down at his detector and it was flashing a mere 89; I nodded towards it and he told me, “You passed ME’!!! I have been trying to catch up with you for ten miles and I know your detector went off as I gained on you and you immediately slowed down, but you had to be going well over a hundred”. Gulp!

After a stern tongue lashing and lecture to which I tried to look pitiful and pretended to wholeheartedly agree with every word he said, he finally did cut me a little slack and gave me a ticket for 81 and you guessed it “Have a nice day”. “Yeah Right!”

I had received three major speeding tickets in as many weeks. The following Monday I gave my expensive state of the art cutting edge radar detector away to a buddy free of charge. I had decided to slow down. The consequences were just too much. Skyrocketing costs associated with paying fines, spiraling insurance rates, costly state of the state radar detectors, and the thought of going to dumb driver’s school and/or quite possibly community service to reduce points, or even worse the distinct possibility of a suspended license made a believer out of me.

This incident reminds me of the concept of repenting. One of the tenants of Christianity is that one must repent of their sins as one of the steps towards salvation. To repent does not simply mean being sorry because “you got caught”, and that the next logical step is to try and figure out a way to continue the same behavior as before but this time without getting caught. It means you will truly be ‘sorry’ about your former lifestyle and you will want to change it for the better by turning from your sins – completely around 180 degrees. It means that you have a different point of view towards life and that fleshly things that seemed fun before are wrong, against God’s laws, and exactly opposite of what you “should” be doing.

If you have repented you will want to do the right thing and feel bad about it if you catch yourself doing something wrong. As with my speeding problem, I have learned that it is impossible to lead a perfect life after one becomes a Christian. I have sworn off my former reckless days of deliberately speeding and trying to beat the system. Occasionally however, I do still catch myself speeding, but I don’t make it a habit and do not do it deliberately anymore in a rebellious way; (or at least not often). I do realize that it is not something that is in my best interests and that I should not be doing it, and that if I continue to do it, I am going to have a BAD day and not a “nice day”. I have similar feelings when I sin. I know that it is wrong and I do not like it when I do it; however sometimes satan just seems to get the best of me and I just do it anyway. When I do, I feel bad about it and try to get back on track ASAP. I ask God to forgive me and strengthen me in that regard. Hopefully those sins will not persist to the point whereby much sorrow coming my way will ‘drive’ me to repentance and I can be smart enough to repent on my own without going to the woodshed first.

This little adventure in my life makes the idea of repenting more understandable, (in my twisted mind anyway), and I hope it helps you. Bottom line – Turn from your sins and enjoy the blessings from above, or face the consequences of being a hard-head and trust me, it ain’t going to be no “nice day”! sic

2 Cor. 7:9
Now I rejoice, not that you were
made sorry, but that your sorrow led
to repentance
For Godly sorrow produces
repentance leading to salvation,
not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the
world produces death.