A neighbor kid has a two-year old car which he worked hard to get and is proud to own. He washes and polished that car every week and is very careful with scratches and dents.

A couple of weeks ago, as he pulled into his mom’s driveway, I noticed that his left tail light was not lit. I told him, “Did you know your left tail light is out?”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I’m not worried about it.”

“But,” I said, “the fuzz will give you a ticket if they see it.”

“I’ll tell them I didn’t know it. They will just give me a notice to have it fixed and I won’t have to pay anything,” he said.

That’s what he thought. Seems that the local police officer had been observing him for some time, so a week ago he pulled the young man over. “I have been watching you for a couple of weeks. You have a tail light out.”

“Oh, I didn’t know,” the young man said. “I’ll get it fixed tomorrow morning.”

“No,” the officer said. “I know for a fact that you knew that light was out and chose to ignore it. I am ticketing you for unsafe vehicle operation and ordering you not to use the car until it is in proper working order.”

Needless to say, this was not the first time the police officer had talked to him.

The young man was ordered to put the car back in the driveway and had to get a ride to work, which meant he was late and lost an hours time. The next morning I took him to the auto parts store to purchase a new lamp - cost $1.89. He came home and raised the trunk, removed the defective lamp, installed the new one, and it worked fine. I flagged down a local police officer who initialed his ticket so he could drive it to the police station for inspection. They gave him a clean bill of auto health.

Yesterday he had to go to court. He was fined $50 for knowingly operating a defective vehicle... Cost - $12.50 for an hours loss of pay + $50 fine + $100 for day off to go to court + $1.89 for new light bulb, for a total of $174.33. That was an expensive lesson...

The broken lamp did not really cost that young man. His thinking did.

I fail to understand why some people will “push the envelop” to the limit. If he had repaired the light when he first knew about it, he would have spent only $1.89.

Let’s look at a few more examples.

I observed a man in “Toys-R-Us” remove a bar code from a bicycle flag and stick it on a tire pump. The tire pump cost $14. and the flag cost $3.49. The scanner simply put “Bicycle accessories” on the ticket, so the man just made $10.51. Yet, if he got caught it could cost him prison time and a large fine. Likely loose his job, too. The total cost could be very great indeed.

But, it’s not the dollars it costs. It’s the thinking that he now has to live with. He knows he is a thief. If he were told he was a thief, he would be angry, yet he is, so I did. He left in a huff...

A lady in San Diego a few years ago was driving with her four kids in the car drinking a can of coke. The kids were fussing with each other and jumping around. Suddenly the lady lost her cool and threw the can out the car window, pulled to the side of the road, stopped, and slapped a couple of kids. A police officer pulled up behind her with coke spilled all over the front of his car. “Mam,” he said, “I commend you for the discipline you dished out to your children, but I am giving you a ticket for littering.” And he did.

The lady was required to go to court. She told the judge what happened and was asked what her income was. The judge then said, “I know you need all the money you have and therefore, I will not fine you. However, I am ordering you to take those children, go out on the streets, and pick up a ton of debris. You have two months to collect this trash, and you will bring it to the police station each day and have it weighed. When you have collected 2200 pounds, I will order all charges dropped. If you fail to collect a ton of trash within sixty days, I will send you to jail for ten days. It’s up to you.”

The lady was so surprised that she cried, right there in court. Then she took those kids out and in four days, they had collected well over a ton! The judge did, in fact, drop all charges, and commended her for her good work.

Well, it did not end there. The kids told the kids at their school about it and they decided to start a “Trash Club.” The Department Of Highways furnished reflective vests and bright orange trash bags. The club grew into what is now known as “Adopt A Highway.” The thinking of that lady started something good, even if she did make a mistake.

How we think causes our “luck.” We make our own luck. The Greatest Book ever written says, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Prov.23:7 That’s what my dad wanted me to understand when he told me, “Get your head together, Son.”

Thanks, Dad!