I have a friend that works at the church where I go.  The church is rather large (several thousand people).  He works in the security department.  As you can imagine, his stories make me laugh a lot.  Most of the stories he has to share are about people’s parking habits.

As you drive on to the church campus on Sunday mornings, you can imagine the number of cars.  There are a lot of cars.  The great thing about the parking is regardless of where you have to park, a trolley will come by and pick you up at “trolley stations”.  Before I continue, let me say there is enough parking for everyone.

Despite all the services the church seems to offer, and all the parking places available, some people just aren’t satisfied.  The obviously feel “special” and take their parking situation in to their own hands.  Back to coming on to the campus…

As you drive on to the campus, you will see people parked everywhere…on red curb areas, they jump curbs and park on grass lawns, medians, handicapped spots, reserved areas, you name it.  My friends job is to make sure people don’t do that and he places “reminder” tickets on their window asking them not to park there again.  It isn’t the church is being a jerk about it, it’s just they have gone to great extent to provide more than adequate services to transport people and the excluded areas are for safety issues and help the flow of traffic.

My friend has this one girl who has some severe entitlement issues.  She parks all over the place.  He has put several reminders on her car but it really doesn’t help.  One day he even waited and confronted her.  Imagine that…having to be confronted about parking at church.  Finally he put a parking “boot” on her car so she couldn’t park and leave. 

What do our parking habits say about us?  Our driving habits?  We break speed limits, park in designated no parking areas, whip in spots to beat other people, drive on the shoulder when there is no median.  Aren’t those laws and guidelines there for a reason and we simply ignore them.  For some reason, we just don’t think they apply to us.  We are special, exempt, and declare immunity.  It’s called entitlement.

I think we relate to God that way.  He has some guidelines and laws in place to live by, and well…we just don’t think He meant those for us.  We are exempt, special, immune.  What we don’t want to grasp is that God isn’t a killjoy.  Actually the opposite.  He wants to give life and help us experience it to the best possible.  So why don’t we listen?  We deserve more.