Rash: How Our Best Efforts Aren’t Always Our Best Moments

I was working dayshift in patrol when I spotted it.  I was driving around in my route minding my own business when the bright yellow Polaris caught the corner of my eye.  It was next to the crappy shed in the back yard of one of the town’s problem families.  Every town has its problem families.  Ya, you know the ones.

There was a rash of ATV thefts in town recently and there were no leads.  And by “a rash” I mean three or four.  In a small town, that’s a big rash.

I pulled over and broke out my binoculars to get a better look at the ATV which sat a couple hundred feet away.  The make and model decal on the trim was legible and it seemed to match the most recently stolen Polaris.  “What a bunch of boobs,” I mused, “leaving it out in the open like that!”  Hashtag job security.

There’s A Cream For That

I put a call in to Detectives prompting two of them to come out with a pair of more powerful binoculars.  We read the markings and confirmed it matched the stolen Polaris.  I sat and kept an eye on it while they typed the search warrant, brought it to court, and had it signed by the judge. After several hours, they gave me the heads up that the warrant was good to go and they were on their way.  I rubbed my hands together and my heart fluttered in anticipation of cracking these ATV capers wide open.  This town had a rash and I had a cream for that.

The detectives rolled up and we strode through the gate of the chain link fence and headed straight for that yellow Polaris.  It seemed like we were walking in slow motion while the wind gently tussled our hair, the sun glinted off our aviators, and Chariots of Fire played in the background.  With every step that brought us closer, I couldn’t help but notice a sinking feeling rising in my gut.  Something just wasn’t right.

Maybe Not

The three of us stood in a semicircle around the ATV awkwardly looking down at it. There was no denying it.  It was a lot smaller than it should have been…because it was a Power Wheels.  Power Wheels, you know, “Pow-pow-power wheels, pow-pow-power wheels, power makes it go!”  And in a shameless effort to appear less dumb to you, the reader, let me tell you, that Power Wheels was an exact replica!  Except for the fact, of course, that it was roughly one-third of the size, operated on a 9-volt battery, and had a top speed of 2 mph.

So, with my proverbial tail tucked between my legs, I humbly left a copy of the search warrant with little Billy’s Power Wheels secretly hoping it would just blow away.  Then we made an about face and quickly headed for our cars to get the heck out of there before anyone saw us. 

As you may imagine, that little episode was quite the topic of conversation at work for a while.  Or forever. I can’t quite recall.

Best Efforts and Epic Fails

Sometimes our best, well-intentioned efforts come to naught. Which is just a nice way of saying that we tried but fell flat on our face and made a fool of ourself in the process.  That’s what I did.  That’s life.  That’s this job.  

We can’t let our failures get us down and keep us there.  Galatians 6:9 says, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (ESV)  Don’t quit.  Keeping plugging.  Don’t give up.

For more on the topic of failure check out the book Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn by John Maxwell.

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• Have you had a yellow Polaris moment?
• Is there anything you could have done differently?
• What did you learn from it?