“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.” (Romans 15:13)
I once had someone try to steal my purse, but I held on so tightly that the thief finally ran off. Not sure if that was the wisest thing to do, but at the time I was young enough to think I could best him in a tug of war. Another time at a conference, I did have my purse stolen. I have experienced attempts to steal my identity, credit card information, and social security number. As a result of all this, Reid and I have security systems on our home and car, a rather heavy safe, and other protective measures. This has all worked well so far – that is unless I forget to turn the security system off in the morning. But that is a story I will share some other time. I can tell you that we have some nice police officers protecting our fair city.
Thieves steal. That is their nature. They take what is not theirs. They rob homes, businesses, automobiles, and retail stores. Sometimes they are caught. Sometimes they get away with their larceny. Employee thefts cost businesses 50 billion dollars a year. Shoplifters steal 13 billion dollars of merchandise each year. And hackers rob people of close to 575 billion dollars annually.
But are you aware there is another thievery that happens in America every day? Worse thing about it is that it happens in the church. This is not actually a theft, it is sadly a relinquishing of our valuable things – namely our joy and peace. Listen again to our focus verse for this week: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.” Clearly, joy and peace are God’s gifts to his children. They are graces God fills us with through his Holy Spirit. Joy is the Greek word chara. It denotes a feeling of inner gladness. Peace is the Greek word eirene. It denotes a quiet rest. Both gladness and rest are things every person desires. Some never fully attain them. However, for believers they are given to us by God.
Now it seems to me that anything outside of our being can be stolen, such as our purse, identity, or credit card information. But anything inside of us cannot be stolen. For us to lose what God places inside us, we must give it away. We must reach inside our soul, take the valuable assets of joy and peace, and hand them over to a person, circumstance, or event that is outside of our essence. We must make a conscious choice to take what is precious and willingly hand it over to the thief. The question is, why would we want to do that?
Let’s not foolishly hand over the precious priceless gifts God places in us. Let’s not allow the sins of the world, a lack of justice, the downward turn of events, a pandemic, or the outcome of an election; be a thief that holds us hostage until we surrender our joy and peace to the enemy. We cannot loseour joy and peace. They cannot be taken from us. There is no thief powerful enough to do that. We can only give it away. And they are far too valuable for us to do that.
Darlene