“Do you have your ID?”

“Well, I have …”

Right away I know there’s going to be trouble. Without another word I know she probably doesn’t have her ID … or it’s expired.

You may have every other document there could be to prove your identity, but it’s no good. You may look like the person on your school ID, your work ID, your signature matches your Social Security Card, your credit card, and your birth certificate proves you we born in San Antonio (not that that matters). But all we can accept is a License or a Passport. It’s the rules.

I believe you. I think an imposter would give up a little more easily. An imposter would rather bring the 1 form of ID they need rather than forging 5 documents they don’t. I don’t think an imposter would beg to take the test. A crook pulls out at the hint of trouble.

She came from out of town to take this test, and she’s taken it 4 times already, and it’s $65 each time (which she won’t get back if I turn her away). So, even though I’m bending my personal rule about when I’ll bend the corporate rule, I let her test.

“God bless you” she says.

God bless me? For breaking the rules? For doing what I’ve been told not to do by those whose work I’m here to do? Would God bless me for something like that?

Yes, I’m showing mercy. I’m saving you the pain of another $65 lost and an hour and a half car trip wasted. This just might be the test you pass and I’m giving you that opportunity. Surely God appreciates mercy.

But this is mercy I do not have the authority to show. I’m making someone else’s decision for them and hoping to get away with it. It’s a secret pact I’m entering into between the tester and myself. It’s like me standing inside the fence in some far corner of heaven helping over someone who has petitioned my help because “I meant to repent, but judgement came so fast I just didn’t have time to.”

I don’t think God would bless me for that.

Filed under: Archive