The Cracked Acorn: Stealing

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust does corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal” (Matthew 6:19)

A man recently said to me, “I’m in a hurry, but God isn’t!” Have you ever prayed for patience? We live in a “hurry up” world. People “hurry up” so they can rush to do something else. I sometimes wonder why wasn’t I born with roller skates on my feet. Maybe what we need is just more patience. Steve Cummings, Church of Christ, Tusculum,TN

This week, I thought I would make comments about ‘patience’, but I have not quite made it to that point. It all happened this way:

With the return of nice weather, snow and ice and all that yucky stuff is out of the way. it is the time to think about the out-of-doors and doing those projects that require visits to hardware and building supply stores. It is time to give attention to our deck in the back of the house, it has done well for 26 years and needs paint or stain or something to give its wood an extent ion on life.

After travelling about and getting advice from an employee at one of those stores, I decided that sanding would be the way to go and their biggest belt sander would be the answer. I pulled one from a lower shelf and noticed that one was still on the back of the shelf, I pulled it to the front.

“Could I help you?’ was the question from a young employee. I told him I had what I wanted. At that point he inquired of his hand held inventory device and said there were 3 in stock. I had one and one was left on the shelf. I said, “It looks like one of those has taken a ‘walk.’ He said,”I am not surprised!”

A recent survey points back to the last holiday shopping season and it was estimated that 9 billion dollars was lost to shoplifting. This translates to an added cost of 90 dollars to each customer’s purchases at that time.

You don’t have to be the fastest pup in the pack to see that America has patiently accepted stealing as part of the modern buying landscape. The reason for this that the cost of prosecuting individuals caught in the act can have reactions from protective civil rights group and it becomes cost effective to look the other way. Comments, Please!

Carlson was charged with stealing a Mercedes Benz, and after a long trial, the jury acquitted him. Later that day Carlson came back to the judge who had presided at the hearing.”Your honor,” he said, “I wanna get out a warrant for that dirty lawyer of mine.””Why ?” asked the judge. “He won your acquittal. What do you want to have him arrested for?””Well, your honor,” replied Carlson, “I didn’t have the money to pay his fee, so he went and took the car I stole.