Forgiving A Drunk Driver (August 28, 2005)

Two weeks ago a drunk driver careened down the street where I live, knocking down two curbside mailboxes (including mine) before plowing across my lawn and into the attached garage of my next-door neighbor. Then she backed up and sped off. Thankfully another neighbor gave chase and got her license plate number, and the police caught her shortly afterward. This happened about 5 in the afternoon.

My initial reaction was that I wanted her to spend a good long time in jail. Not because I lost a mailbox but because I really, really hate drunk drivers. They kill and paralyze and leave human vegetables in their wake. (I'm sure everyone reading this page knows at least a "friend of a friend" who is now dead or disabled due to some idiot's drunkenness.) I can sympathize with a wretched soul who just wants to drown his sorrows in booze for a bit (Proverbs 31:6: "Give wine...to those who are deep distress"), but if a guy drinks and then beats his wife, or drinks and then turns his vehicle into a deadly weapon, well then he can just rot in sewage-filled dungeon for all I care. Serves him right.

But I am a Christian and I am supposed to forgive, so after I settled down and thought about it I wrote the lady a letter saying I'd forgive her for destroying my mailbox, and pay for it myself, as long as she wrote me a letter of apology and promised to go to a church on Sunday. "What you did was dangerous and if there were any kids playing on that sidewalk you could have killed them," I wrote. "It is important for you to confess to God and stop drinking and get your life together." And I told her my prayers were with her and that I had many good friends who had stopped drinking and turned their lives around and found God.

Thank God she wrote back and sincerely apologized for her actions, and said she would go to (I think it's a Catholic) church that she and her family attend every Sunday. I wrote back saying the mailbox was all forgotten and I wished her and her family well, and that I'd keep praying for them.

We preachers like to draw lessons from everything (it's a habit, as well as a calling and a duty), so here are a few from my mailbox incident.

(1) We're supposed to forgive, but full forgiveness is conditional upon confession and repentance. If the mailbox mauler had not apologized, I would have filed the insurance claim and offered no more grace. Though our forgiveness should be immediate and aggressive and bounteous, it comes attached with a string of accountability that insists on penitence. My sister, for example, graciously forgave the young man who murdered her son (he wept in court and apologized in
person), but she has not forgiven the foul adulterous son of hell who abandoned her after 25 years of marriage, and who remains the world's biggest jerk. Her attitude is exactly as it should be.

(2) We can only forgive that over which we have jurisdiction. I can't forgive that lady for taking out my neighbor's mailbox or for damaging my other neighbor's garage. And she is still answerable to the law for multiple infractions. But I can forgive her for the small part of sin concerning which I was a victim. If I went beyond that (as Jesus did when he forgave people the sins they had committed against others), I'd be claiming to be God. See Mark 2:5-7. I think about this whenever I am asked to "forgive" someone who has done wrong but who has not really wronged me. The answer is, "I can't. It would not be right. I’m not God.”

(3) Finally, and trivially, try not to run over a pastor's mailbox. You might get forgiven, but you'll probably wind up as fodder for his sermon illustrations and "Pastor's Page" columns. That could be embarrassing.