The people at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) are famous for the pictures they take. A few years back I stood on the line at the DMV to have my picture taken for my driver’s license. This is an important picture because you have to show over and over and over.
As I stood on the proper line I pondered what I could do to make my picture look its best. At the last instance I had a great idea. My lips were dry so I stuck my tongue out to wet them.
SNAP!
I heard the shutter on the DMV camera. “NO!” my inner voice shouted. The lady took my picture with my tongue sticking out. There was no going back. One cannot tell the DMV to take a second picture because you do not like the first one.
For four years I carried a driver’s license with a picture of me with my tongue sticking out. On more than one occasion a clerk would look at it and say, “Is your tongue sticking out?” I had a good line, “I stuck my tongue out so that when I am pulled over I could stick my tongue at the policeman.” It was a clever line, but I was smart enough not to actually do it.
This story reminded me of Ecclesiastes 10:1, “As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.” It doesn’t take much of a dead fly in perfume to run the whole bottle. It only takes a moment to ruin a lifetime of hard work. I was careless for a moment, but had to live with it for years. We all need to learn to guard our moments. Life does not come to us a year at a time or a day at a time. Life comes to us seconds at a time. Guard what you do in you seconds and life will take care of yourself.
As the four years term of the old license was winding down I waited with great joy for my new license. They finally sent me a new license. To my horror it had the old tongue-sticking picture on it. All I could think of is “Be sure your sins will find your out.”
Lonnie Davis
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