Attitude Adjustment

On Thursday night I became a burglary victim.  Someone put a stick through the security bars and lifted my bag and my video camera so that he could steal the camera and the wallet. The money to pay for my sons’ soccer registration was in the wallet.  I bought that camera with earnings saved up over a year.  I love to take photos and it will take months to save enough to replace it—fortunately I still have my old camera.  Dang it, it’s just not right!

I’ve been struggling to come around to the Christian attitude about the whole thing and toward the thief.  At first the Psalms of David were closest to describing my attitude—you know “Smite my enemies, oh Lord!”  But is that an attitude my savior would approve?  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it was wrong to be angry or to want the guilty punished but was that enough?

One of my friends emailed me that he was praying  that the  thief would be “blessed, convicted and brought to salvation.”  My thoughts at the time were more along the lines of praying that he would be caught, convicted and jailed. But BLESSED?  Oh yeah, wait.  God loves him too? 

God brought back to my memory the time that my elderly little grandmother had her car broken into.  She was at her volunteer job at her church (which wasn’t really in a good neighborhood). When she came out, her car window was smashed and her Bible, which was in a leather case with a handle, had been stolen. I guess the thief thought someone had carelessly left a handbag in view.

I have never seen anyone as delighted as she was about that theft.  She wasn’t a bit  intimidated about the violation of her property. She wasn’t afraid to go back to the church alone.  The insurance money would fix the window and she had money to buy a new Bible.  She was so excited that God had used her to get a Bible into the hands of someone who really needed it. She went around for days saying, “I’ll bet he was surprised when he opened that zipper.  But he got something worth a whole lot more than a handbag!” I know that her fondest prayer was that the thief would open the Bible, read it and believe it.

So what if “All things(do) work together for those who love the Lord and are called according to his  purpose?”(Romans 8:28)   If that’s true, shouldn’t my attitude be more like my grandmothers?  What’s the good in this?—I’m not sure right now.  Get back to me after all my credit cards and ID’s have been replaced.  But at least God has used my memory and my friend’s words to adjust my attitude about the thief.  Now I'm praying that he's caught, convicted and brought to salvation.  I hope I'll get to the "blessed" point in a couple of days.  Bring on the good, God, and help me recognize it when it gets here.