Theft

Have you ever been robbed? Maybe someone broke into your home and took something valuable. Maybe you returned to your car after work and noticed the broken window. Or maybe you’ve even been mugged. And though some thefts are more violent than others, I think all of them make us feel vulnerable and alone. They leave us with a terrible feeling of loss (not just for the possessions taken) but maybe a loss of security or sense of safety.
In ‘The Kite Runner’, Khaled Hosseini writes, “There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life... you steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness... there is no act more wretched than stealing.”
And since reading that a few years ago, I’ve wrestled with the truth in that statement. I think I can say that I mostly agree. Often sin, or some sort of wrong in our world, is tied to theft. Whether it’s the type of theft we often think of, like the taking of someone else’s possessions, or the theft of a life or the truth, like Hosseini mentions. But I think, even more, that sin can often steal others things from us.
Just for arguments sake, I want to define sin as simply those things we want to do and don’t do or those things we don’t want to do and do anyway. Each of us has those standards we fail to keep that we can call sin. Others, including God, has a standard for us as well, but let's keep it simple.
So in terms of theft, sin can take away something more valuable than the possessions that we own. It can take away our joy. When someone hurts us, especially in a deep and profound way, we have to decide how to respond. Emotionally we might be hurt, broken and angry. And those are fair responses. But if we allow ourselves to stay there, to remain hurt and angry, then that person’s sin has stolen something incredibly more valuable: our joy.
And when we lose our joy, we become people we don’t want to be. Our attitude and our heart changes. We react to people and treat people differently, especially the ones who hurt us. But if we remember that joy is a choice, we can take away the power of the thief. Henri Nowen writes, “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing can take that away.”
I pray that we don’t let others choices steal our joy because our joy comes from knowing that God always and forever loves us. God bless.