Apologetics

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“A life with no rules, that’s what I want!” he declared. “Your Christianity is just a bunch of rules. Nobody tells me what to do!”.

I listened while he talked as we ride-shared on the freeway to work.

As he drove, we entered the carpool lane. He said he likes having passengers because he can drive in the carpool lane and shaves an extra 8-9 minutes off his travel time.

“Look at that jerk!” he hollered, pointing at this black Lexus that cut us off. “You can only drive in this lane if you have 2 or more people in the car. Man, that really fries me!”

“Some people!” I responded, matching his tone of indignation.

As we drove we chatted about music and work and life. The conversation made the trip seem to go faster. In fact, we almost missed our exit. Getting over just in time we rounded the curve only to have to sit and wait for what seemed like forever at an extremely long red light, and then we almost every other red light all the rest of the 5 miles to work. Finally, we made our way into the company parking lot where he pulled into parking space 23, as always.

“Once again, we made it on time. Thank you, thank you very much” he clowned, bowing to a non-existent audience.

“Why did you pull into space 23?” I asked him.

“That’s my space, I always park here. The company assigned it to me.”

“Oh, but what if you want to park in #21 or #11?”

“I can’t, those aren’t my spots.”

“I see, is that some kind of company rule?” I asked, grabbing my time card.

“Yeah, I guess so, just an assigned spot. Hey, don’t punch in yet, we are 2 minutes early. You’ll get in trouble.”

Making conversation while we waited, I answered “Oh thanks about the time card reminder. Hey, are you going anywhere on vacation this year? Any cool plans?”.

‘Naw, can’t go right now. Too many guys in my department are all going this month and next. I signed up too late. Guess I’ll have to wait ‘til after the first of the year.”

“Bummer…too many rules.”

“Huh?” He asked

“Well I mean I guess no matter where we go, whether it is on the freeway, at the traffic light, in the parking structure or at the time clock there are rules.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, on the freeway, we all were driving in the same direction, obeying speed limits and lane designations. No one drove backwards or sideways, did they? And could you imagine the chaos if there were no traffic lights. It would be dog-eat-dog on the highway without rules...pandemonium."

“Yeah, I guess it would. I hadn’t really thought of it that way. But they aren’t a bother…”

“Really? But you said you don’t like rules…that nobody tells you what to do…”

“Aha! You got me good on that one,” he laughed, catching the wink in my eye. “I bet next you’re gonna point out that the rules bring order and keep us safe, right?”

“Nope, you figured that one out all by yourself!”

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