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Most of my days and nights, follow a routine, there is not much that changes from day to day, that makes my times distinct. I am the kind of person, who is a creature of habit. I go to a favorite restaurant, and I do not have to order, they see me, and know what I am there for. I am pretty predictable. Some people would think that I live a boring life, but I like my life just fine, and most things that disturb the routine, are considered interruptions to me.

Life is funny though, sometimes the routines and ruts and habits you are used to, cause the interruptions in the routines. Case in point: I am a procrastinator. Evidence? It is the evening of April 14th, income taxes must be filed April 15th (well a few days grace this year) and I haven’t even begun to gather the information I will need, only now am I thinking about it. Want more evidence? I was tasked with the responsibility of getting Worthychat member’s profiles uploaded to the server, I failed miserably. Mind you, I volunteered for the assignment. Now, I want to tell you about more procrastination, and how these things came together to interrupt my routine.

I used to drive a Chevy van. One day, it would not start, so, I had it towed to my home. It was only a starter issue, an easy, inexpensive fix, but I did not get to it right away. The car sat for too long, so I had to replace the battery when I did get around to fixing it. Procrastination is costly, that means that it is poor stewardship, and therefore, not of God. I confess the sin of procrastination, but I apparently have not repented of it, as you will see. When I finally did get the car started again, I put in into drive, but it did not feel right, as though the transmission might be low on fluid, so of course, I immediately said: “It will wait to another day”. You know, I have a postcard, which is my membership application to Procrastinators Anonymous. It has a 2 cent stamp on it, which was the proper postage at the time it was filled out.

Anyway, time moves on, as all procrastinators know. The registration became due on the van, but I did not send it in. I needed to get the vehicle smog checked, to complete the registration process, but I put it off, since the car was not ready to be driven. Eventually, the registration became past due, so, it would cost me a little more. Time moves on.

My family is planning to uproot and move to another part of the state. We have been planning this, for over a year. At the time we made this decision, real estate prices were climbing rapidly. The type of house we wanted to buy at that time, was about $330,000. Those houses today, are about $430,000. Now, while that procrastination would seem to have cost us $100,000, the house we are living in, is worth more, and it has gained even more value, so in this rare case, procrastination has gained us money. However, real estate prices have leveled out and are turning downward as I type this, so, I am possibly going to lose money from now on, due to procrastination. I am not here to talk about the house though, or even procrastination. I just take a long time getting to a point, I even procrastinate about that, please bear with me a while longer.

Back to the Van. I realized, that I should get it running and sell it, or start driving it again, and I need to have it moveable, so that the house will show well when we put it on the market. It has sat so long again, that it needs yet another battery. I was going to replace the battery, and begin that project finally, but when I attempted to open the hood to access the battery, I found that the van had sat there so long, that the hood latch has rusted shut, and now, cannot be opened. Oh well, it will wait to until another day.

Time passes. One day, a white paper appeared on the windshield. The paper was a citation from the city. In my city, there is a regulation, which forbids you to store an inoperable vehicle on your own property, unless it is in a garage, or behind a 6 foot high fence. This van was in the driveway. What made this vehicle inoperable, from the city’s perspective, was the fact that it lacked current stickers on the license plate. This cannot be seen from the street, so the police had to have come onto my property to look and see that the stickers were out of date. See them they did, hence the ticket. The ticket has a $60 fine associated with it, and a requirement that the vehicle had to registered or removed within 10 days. Well, I had things to do during those ten days, so I did not move or register it, difficult anyway if it does not operate. Time passed, 20 days to be exact, and the police towed it away. Procrastination is a disease!

Am I done yet? No, I am sorry, but this was all just to set the real story up, and believe it or not, I left a lot out already. Now, I went down to the storage yard, where the van had been impounded, to get it back out, as I did not want to incur more storage fees, about $25 a day. There, I was informed, that I would have to get a property release from the police department. I went to the police department, to get the release, but they said since it was impounded for not being registered, I would have to register it, before they would release it. This presented a problem, because I could not get it registered without taking it to a pollution control station, and I could not do that unless they would release the car. Long story short on this part, I would have to let the car sit there day after day, accruing $25 for each one, until they finally decided that the money I owed was so much, that they would have to collect it, but if I paid it, that still would not get the car out, so it would still accumulate more storage fees. Obviously, the best thing to do at this point was to not pay so that they would sell the car to recover the fees, then the storage would stop. I offered to just sign the car over to them, and end it early. They were willing to do so, just as soon as they get the paperwork back from the department of Motor Vehicles, in about 6 weeks.

To me, this was unacceptable, ridiculous, and wrong. I know when I am being abused, and I do not roll over for bullies. That part where Jesus says to turn the other check, hasn’t sunk in yet. Well I investigated other ways around this, only to encounter more road blocks. I also had an engine inside the van, in the back of it, that I wanted out. I asked for my personal property, but the storage yard said I’d need a property release from the police department. I have heard this line before. I went to the police department, and did get the release for the engine. I went back to the yard to get the engine. They said “O.k. fine, how do you plan on getting the engine out of the back of the van?” I said I would use a small engine crane (a cherry picker). They said “Oh no, I cannot let you bring equipment into the yard”. I asked “why not?”, and they said that I might “hurt myself”. I am thinking that it did not occur to them that I might get hurt more, if I attempted to remove the engine without the crane, lol. It took me 10 days, to find a way to get them to let me have the van removed from the yard. O.K. I am almost to my point now.

One of the things I discovered in my researching to find a way to extricate my car, was a technical mistake the police made, a very interesting one. They used a section of our state vehicle code, as their authority to tow the car from my property. Here is the problem. That section of the code, gives the owner of the real estate (me) the right to contact the police and have them authorize the removal of a vehicle left on the property. Thing is, I never called the police, so the code does not give them any authority to tow the vehicle. There is a section they could have used, but they cited the wrong authority. Here is the fun part:

The end of this section of the code, requires that the towing company obtain the signature of the real estate owner, before they tow the vehicle. In other words, under that section, they cannot by law tow the vehicle without my permission and signature. Failing to do that, they are violating the law. So, what is the consequence of violating this law? Well, they are subject to criminal prosecution, and they owe the vehicle owner 4 times the impound fee and 4 times the towing fee. All the time the van was sitting in the impound yard, it was making money for me, not them!

I was relishing this idea, not for the money, but for the opportunity to make them pay for being abusive, and so mean that they would not even try to work with me, but gave me a road block everywhere they could, just to increase the money they could get out of me. Now, I could turn there greed against them, how fitting.

Funny thing happened to me on the way to inform them of this little snafu. Something popped into my head.

Matt 5:7
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy

Matt 6:14-15

14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

I was enjoying the idea that these guys would pay. It wasn’t really a revenge thing in my mind, as I said, I do not like bullies. I was seeing this as a justice, and justice is something good. Justice, is for the other guy though, while I felt unjustly treated, I was not seeking justice for myself, really. I saw their acts as unjust, and it was their punishment that I was seeking, not to cause them pain, lest you think worse of me that you should, but in my mind, this justice was to encourage them not to abuse people, I certainly did not want to see them rewarded for that.

When the word of Jesus, about mercy and such, popped into my head, a few things happened. The first was, that I submitted instantly to the idea of being merciful, I did not argue or try to justify the actions that I was intending. When I dropped my plans, I felt good. I had felt good about going for justice, but this felt better. I had missed something the past 10 days, that I usually enjoy:

Phil 4:6-7
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God , which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
All this money I was losing, was making me anxious, the roadblocks were frustrating me. Now that I had given up my plan, that peace that transcends understanding, returned.

I realize that as far as adversity goes, this was minor, but it was bugging me. What I was missing, was realizing the opportunity that was before me, an opportunity to do as Jesus would, and opportunity to pray for my ‘enemies’, and opportunity to allow the Lord to teach me patience, an opportunity to forgive, and an opportunity to receive another lesson about procrastination.

Don’t pass up your opportunities.

Thanks for listening.