Good Morning Church — The most important question to ask if you are ever involved in an accident is, “Officer what’s your assessment?”

4 min readJan 22, 2017

I stumbled across this revelation after a traffic accident last year. I work with a former police officer and I was dealing with an accident report that was written all wrong.

He said never assume the officer at the scene is seeing what you are seeing. He said. “If you do you may be in for a big surprise.”

The same is true in life.

So often we share things — we do things — and we assume everyone understands and sees things the way we do.

Especially with those that we have the most influence over.

Ask any parent who has been shocked by opinions held by their children.

We carefully share the things we think they need for life then out of the blue we discover they are nothing like us.

And don’t get me wrong — I want my children to think for themselves but I had always hoped if we weren’t on the same page at least we were in the same book.

Just like the problems I experienced from the traffic accident last year what I saw and understood was not the same for my kids.

As our kids grow and we have them under our influence we need to work constantly to understand their assessment of the world around them.

It’s hard to help them sort through the confusing and very often conflicting information that crosses their paths when they are young — but as they grow into adulthood the challenge is even greater.

As Christians we want to have influence on the world around us — and we go through life hoping our message is coming through.

But what’s the assessment of those around us?

Do they see what we see — do they see us as we hope the world sees us?

Do we try to conduct ourselves like Christians at all times — and when we fall short of that goal do we stop and apologize and set the record straight?

Or do we use GRACE as an excuse to not always do the right thing?

Do we use GOD’S GRACE as a cop-out?

GRACE is there — it is real!

And nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But THE GRACE of GOD should never be used like a entitlement rather than a rescue.

GOD’S GRACE is there to give us peace from those moments in life that do slip by unchecked. All of us have times in our lives when we reflect on the events of a hectic day and we realize we handled a situation or circumstance inappropriately and there is no way we can make it right.

That is when GRACE sets us free of the doubt, of the guilt, of the shame; But it should also set us on a path to be better — not lazy and indifferent.

Because the life we live everyday is the greatest testimony we have to what CHRIST has done for us.