“…but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” 1 Peter 1:15

Wholly Holy

It was just another ordinary weekday and a day I had to pick up our youngest from school instead of him taking the bus due to one appointment or another. Cruising our neighborhood that I feel completely (too) comfortable in, I apparently rolled through the stop sign. I guess in my mind I “stopped enough to count,” but not according to the overhead traffic plane. On top of that offense, I broke the hands-free cellphone law. I had to make sure the school office knew not to put my son on the bus and of course, since they can’t always hear me clearly on speaker phone, I picked it up to make the call. No big deal, right? After all I was in my quiet neighborhood, no one around, no one affected. Or so I thought.

Despite the sunshiny sky on this midday afternoon, the blue and red lights did not escape my attention behind me as my heart seemed to leap into my throat. Caught in the act. Not a fun place to be—and there was no erasing the wrongs I had done. I must have had such a dreadfully fearful look on my face as the officer commented, “I am not mad at you!” He recounted back to me the reasons for him pulling me over and graciously gave me only a warning for the stop sign disobedience. The cellphone one, though—ticket. I got a ticket for the first time in years!

As I drove away from that awful and embarrassing encounter, I was thinking about how terrible the situation was and how I would have to face the music and confess to my husband later.

“Why did this have to happen to me!? If only I had just exercised more driving integrity!” I was having a pity party of the worst kind, wishing I could just go back ten minutes and make different choices.

What a damper on my recent success and excitement of completing an extremely difficult college course. In fact, how comical it would be if I had said, “But officer, I just got an A+ in a very difficult college course! Can’t you just give me a chance?!”

I could not help but compare this to how it would be if we did this with God. My victory (all to His glory) in one area of my life certainly does not give me freedom to justify areas of sin, no matter how small, in another area.

Father, I know better than to think that one area in which I have more victory can “offset” the many other areas in which I fall short. Thank You for immediately reminding us anytime we subscribe to this way of thinking. Please daily make me more like You, and humble me completely. Amen.