Tickets

Yesterday in my sermon I talked briefly about the last speeding ticket I got - I was talking about taking responsibility for our actions and the consequence of sin (yep, I WAS indeed going 54 in that 35 MPH zone - lots of "reasons" for it, but...I did it).  So, anyway, that's not what I want to talk about here.  It just reminded me of it.

A couple weeks ago I got a parking ticket (did you know I was such a law breaker?).  Now, parking tickets aren't like speeding tickets.  Speeding is related to reckless driving.  When was the last time you heard of reckless parking?  In fact, I think it's even called a non-moving violation (which sounds kinda bad in its own right, doesn't it?).

But.  I'll take a hundred of these parking tickets.  Here's the deal.  I met a guy for coffee in Tidioute, the community down the road that is working with us in ministry and I was so...eager to start the conversation that I didn't even see that there were parking meters on the street.  We walked into the little cafe, I think somebody just told me it changed hands so I'll have to check it out again, had some breakfast (all I remember of the food is some of the best homemade bread in the county) and coffee and lots of conversation.  No, I mean LOTS.  Like, three or four hours worth.  A little discipleship time - we were talking about the book of Job that week, if I remember correctly, but then we spent hours talking about life, and the community and ministry and dreams.

It was awesome.

The perfect morning meeting.

I learned a lot about the community, a lot about my friend, we talked a lot about the Bible and about ministry possibilities and I met some new folks in town.  And we walked out of the cafe and...

...there was a parking ticket on my car....

...sigh...

But, you know what?  Even if I HAD put money in the meter, we would have been in there way longer than the maximum time allowed and I was far too lost in the conversation and the possibilities that I might not have even have remembered to "feed the meter" two hours into it, or whatever.  Or we might have watched the clock too closely and missed out on a lot of what we talked about.  So it was a couple dollar parking ticket.  It was worth every penny.  I'd pay it again with a smile.  But some tickets are worth paying.