Last night I stopped a robbery from happening. I went to the studio late to take care of some things (late being 9 pm for us). I heard a harsh metal-on-metal sound out my back door and opened the door to see what it was. It was a young man in a gray hooded sweatshirt, and I must have scared the heck out of him. He ran like crazy. Naturally, I gave chase (but not too far). I yelled at him, which only made him run faster.
I called the police and my neighbor. I talked with the police once, then after my neighbor arrived I talked with them again. The metal sounds I heard, we found, were the hinges being taken out of my neighbor’s back door.
This kind of thing makes me nervous. Makes me want to get a better back door and maybe a security system. Makes me want to hold more tightly to what is mine, especially since I know there are people willing to take it unlawfully. A little paranoia is not bad. But I know that fear and holding tighter to material things are not healthy responses.
So before I left work, I prayed for the guy who was trying to break into my neighbor’s church. I prayed that God would end the destructive and unhealthy patterns in his life. I prayed that if he was trying to steal to support a drug habit, God would set him free from his bondage to chemical substances. I prayed that God would bless him, and that it would end the practice of violating other people by stealing.