August 3rd, 2007 began as it usually does for my family- wake up, bathe the baby, take our baths, get dressed and leave for church. The difference this time was that we would be going to church in our car, with me on the wheels (I'm grinning from ear to ear).
We got ready and soon we were in the car, my (beautiful) wife Mojisola, our chubby baby boy, Olu-funsho and I. We had to buy fuel and pick a friend, who happens to be my instructor and a member of our church along the way, so the real test of my driving had not really started. When we had picked him and bought fuel, we started the next phase of our journey to Gbagada, where our church is located.
Being very new at driving on the roads of Nigeria, I had to drive slowly and carefully so while other drivers are speeding off, I'm just crawling along, with my Learner's Certificate, obvious to the all the other road users. Are you wandering what the certificate is? You must have guessed by now, right?
Well the distance between me and the car ahead of me was about a hundred metres so there was enough room for a policeman to stop right in front of me and wave me down. I must tell you that I donot like Nigerian policemen, even though I have an uncle who's an ASP in Osun State. Well I had to stop, didn't I? At least here's a representative of the law asking me to pull over. I pulled over to my right and stopped. Then the policeman asked for my vehicle insurance. I was wondering what his business with that was but I reached into the glove compartment of the car and pulled out the photocopies of my vehicle particulars.
At this point I would like to back up to about twenty hours before this time (about 7.30 in the morning), where my friend/instructor showed me that the declaration for change of ownership document I had was not signed by the declarant, in this case me. I had asked someone to help me sort out the vehicle particulars and he had left the part where I was supposed to sign empty. My friend/instructor had told me to sign the document, because the Police had stopped him too on Friday on the same issue. Well, to cut a long story short, I forgot to sign the document.
So lets fast foward to Sunday, 7.30am at Bolade junction, Oshodi Expressway. As I pulled the particulars out, it was opened to the part where the declarator's signature was supposed to be. The policeman, since most of them are looking for something to implicate drivers with, spotted it at once. I knew there was trouble immediately. After a lot of pleading from my end, he got into my car and asked me to drive to the police station. We never got into the police station and after much pleading (and another 15 minutes), I parted with three hundred naira!
However that isn't my point. When we got to church, I made a comment. "Maybe," I said "it was because we didn't pray well in the morning that we got into the qualms with the police?" My wife immediately rebuked me. She told me it was my NEGLIGENCE that caused the episode. I immediately repented. As I meditated on what happened, it occurred to me that many times we are negligent in doing the right things and we expect God to just supernaturally cover up for our negligence.(Right now I have decided to watch out for areas of my life where I need to be more careful and diligent).
It is clear from scripture that God only assists us in our WEAKNESS not our NEGLIGENCE. It is interesting that many of the believers of today think like I do. We leave out the things we should do and expect the divine to just make up for us. The truth is that when we are negligent, we will pay for our errors. God, in His mercy, can come in but when we are negligent, we open ourselves to harrasment from opportunists. When we are negligent, the devil has a case against us and we can only appeal to God's mercy when judgement comes.
Remember, if you break the hedge, the serpent will bite.
'nuff said.
We got ready and soon we were in the car, my (beautiful) wife Mojisola, our chubby baby boy, Olu-funsho and I. We had to buy fuel and pick a friend, who happens to be my instructor and a member of our church along the way, so the real test of my driving had not really started. When we had picked him and bought fuel, we started the next phase of our journey to Gbagada, where our church is located.
Being very new at driving on the roads of Nigeria, I had to drive slowly and carefully so while other drivers are speeding off, I'm just crawling along, with my Learner's Certificate, obvious to the all the other road users. Are you wandering what the certificate is? You must have guessed by now, right?
Well the distance between me and the car ahead of me was about a hundred metres so there was enough room for a policeman to stop right in front of me and wave me down. I must tell you that I donot like Nigerian policemen, even though I have an uncle who's an ASP in Osun State. Well I had to stop, didn't I? At least here's a representative of the law asking me to pull over. I pulled over to my right and stopped. Then the policeman asked for my vehicle insurance. I was wondering what his business with that was but I reached into the glove compartment of the car and pulled out the photocopies of my vehicle particulars.
At this point I would like to back up to about twenty hours before this time (about 7.30 in the morning), where my friend/instructor showed me that the declaration for change of ownership document I had was not signed by the declarant, in this case me. I had asked someone to help me sort out the vehicle particulars and he had left the part where I was supposed to sign empty. My friend/instructor had told me to sign the document, because the Police had stopped him too on Friday on the same issue. Well, to cut a long story short, I forgot to sign the document.
So lets fast foward to Sunday, 7.30am at Bolade junction, Oshodi Expressway. As I pulled the particulars out, it was opened to the part where the declarator's signature was supposed to be. The policeman, since most of them are looking for something to implicate drivers with, spotted it at once. I knew there was trouble immediately. After a lot of pleading from my end, he got into my car and asked me to drive to the police station. We never got into the police station and after much pleading (and another 15 minutes), I parted with three hundred naira!
However that isn't my point. When we got to church, I made a comment. "Maybe," I said "it was because we didn't pray well in the morning that we got into the qualms with the police?" My wife immediately rebuked me. She told me it was my NEGLIGENCE that caused the episode. I immediately repented. As I meditated on what happened, it occurred to me that many times we are negligent in doing the right things and we expect God to just supernaturally cover up for our negligence.(Right now I have decided to watch out for areas of my life where I need to be more careful and diligent).
It is clear from scripture that God only assists us in our WEAKNESS not our NEGLIGENCE. It is interesting that many of the believers of today think like I do. We leave out the things we should do and expect the divine to just make up for us. The truth is that when we are negligent, we will pay for our errors. God, in His mercy, can come in but when we are negligent, we open ourselves to harrasment from opportunists. When we are negligent, the devil has a case against us and we can only appeal to God's mercy when judgement comes.
Remember, if you break the hedge, the serpent will bite.
'nuff said.
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