Butt end of a joke...

I recently read a joke, and it read like this:
        When a traffic cop pulled over Pastor Johnson for speeding, the minister reminded the officer, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy." The cop handed the minister the ticket and quoted, "Go thou and sin no more."

As funny as that initially was, it struck a strong and disturbing reality inside of me. A thought came to my mind. What does it mean to be merciful? So I pulled out the Bible and dictionary to compare the two. The dictionary says merciful is exactly what I thought (kudos to my vocabulary teachers), full of mercy. The commentary in my bible says that the 'merciful' are full of compassion and pity toward those who are suffering either from sin or sorrow. The merciful sincerely want to make such suffering less by bringing those people to the grace and help of God through Jesus Christ.

I can't count the number of times that I was driving my granted 7 mph over the speed limit, and some "law fearing" person flies by me like I'm sitting on the side of the road with a flat tire. And in those times I hoped that a cop or two were sitting up the road just waiting on my 2 fast 2 furious want-to-be friend. Or when I only have one item to buy at Wal-Mart, and they have two cashiers on duty, one of which is the express lane, and the lady who just bought groceries for a family of what looks like 80, so graciously cuts me off and checks out in the express, 10 items or less please, lane. How full of mercy am I in those moments? How compassionate towards others am I in those moments? Who knows how many jobs the could be single mother, trying to feed her family of what looks like 80, be working? What if the "law fearing citizen" is racing to get to his elderly grandmother's house because she just fell, and somehow reached the phone to call him? How much more would a speeding ticket if not reckless driving ticket, set him back? In these times of no mercy moments in my life, is there any mercy for me?    

Moral of the story: Never read a joke without wearing some kind of close toed shoe because it hurts a lot less to have your toes stepped on.