God of Justice, Mercy and Grace

Some of you would know about the car accident I had in Sept 2004. I want to share something about what I learned through the incident, the follow-up court trials and the concluding sentence.

I met with the accident in Sept 23, 2004. It was a major crash, like a Jackie Chan stunt in his movies. It happened at the junction of Bartley Road and Upper Serangoon. I was heading fr Yishun via SLE. Somehow my mind was pre-occupied and I did not realise that the light had turned red in my direction and actually drove past the stop line. When I realised what happened, I picked up speed further in the hope to get through the junction. But a Hyundai Santa Fe came crashing into my right front, spun and crashed again into my right rear. My car swerved onto the pavement, missed a traffic light on my left and the road railing on my right and ploughed onto a soft grass patch. Everything happened so fast I was so stunned I didn't know how to react. I only came to my senses when I saw my car heading for a huge beam holding up a flyover! It was only then I applied brake and stopped just in the nick of time, less than 10 meters away from and about 20 degrees anti-clockwise to the concrete beam. If I had hit that beam, I either would have died on the spot or more likely, be very seriously injured. But thank God I only sustained a hard knock on my right temple. The windscreen cracked but did not come crashing down. When the car stopped, I was in a daze. I remembered asking myself if I was dreaming. And I asked God if this was real. And I asked Him how could it have happened? I thought I had His protection, favour and blessings? To cut a long story short, I went into an 'existential crisis' and started to ask Him what He want of my life...

Well, but what I want to share about is the meaning of grace. You see I still don't believe in 'cheap grace'. Someone once came to our church and shared about the topic of "grace". He said something to the effect that to fully understand and appreciate His grace, we must first understand His justice and mercy. Through this whole episode, I think I had a personal understanding of what he said...

After the incident, I was charged for dangerous driving, the next most severe traffic charge after reckless driving (that is when you kill someone). So I engaged a lawyer upon my friend's advice and started a long-drawn process of hearing, adjournment, hearing again, adjourn again etc. Many people prayed for me during that period. A well-meaning church sister even assured me that "Sister, don't worry! I have prayed for you and the Lord will enable you to walk of scot free from the courtroom!".

I am thankful to that well-meaning sister, but I remembered the Lord's words, "Thou shall not put the Lord thy God to the test.." For I knew it was not possible for me to get off scot free! We were mitigating for a lesser charge of careless driving. No way I can get off scot free without being fined or suspended from driving. I did run afoul of the law by beating the red light (I did make a momentous decision to pick up speed to try and get through!). Our God is a God of justice. When His children do wrong, we must and will have to face up to the consequence. (If God is just a God of Grace who just blots out our transgression freely, then there would be no prisons today, would there?). But our God is also a God of Mercy. In His justice, He allowed me to be sentenced (we didn't manage to get the charge reduced). But in His mercy, He made the sentence a lighter one than I had feared - I was fined S$2800 and suspended from driving for 3 months (if the suspension were 6 months or more, I would have to go through the whole process of applying for a new licence).

During the period of my suspension from driving, my husband went overseas for a good 6 weeks. It was really very inconvenient and trying sometimes (to have the car parked there and I couldn't use) especially during the weekends when I had to send the boys for CCA and classes and also my mum-in-law for marketing, go to church then go for lunch before send kids to school for badminton on Sundays etc. But in that 3 months, I understand the meaning of "My grace more than sufficient for you". He raised up people who were kind to chauffer us here and there, like my own brother, sister-in-law, church friends....

Through this little anecdote, I hope you can see my point - God is ALTOGETHER a God of Justice, Mercy and Grace. There is no cheap grace....