Thieves Among Us…Who Are They?

SMALL STRAWS IN A SOFT WIND by MARSHA BURNS: 1/9/16
Establish and maintain good boundaries so that you are under My Spiritual protection. The enemy will do what it takes to exploit your time, energy and finances. Set a watch, and refuse to allow deception and nonsense to invade your personal space, says the Lord.

John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

For a number of days this title has been going over and over in my head. In that respect, I began to ask myself, “who are these thieves?” I believe that the Lord has given me an opportunity to share with you some insights into who they may be and why they could be working in your life.

I want to use some of my life experiences to show you how a thief can come in to take things and then explain what costs come when these things are taken both in the natural and in the spirit realm. You may even want to ask yourself questions such as, “what happened?” and “how would I choose to handle it?”

My prayer is if you see some of these same blocks in your life that you stop, take a look, then you may want to do what is necessary to take them down so that you can rebuild going forward.

What is a thief? (vocabulary.com) thief (n) a criminal who takes property belonging to someone else with the intention of keeping it or selling it….

Here we see that it is someone who is going to take something that does not belong to them to keep or sell. I personally consider this to be extremely selfish in so many ways because it seems that everything revolves around them no matter how it hurts others.

I was raised in a very loving, caring, healthy and trusting family. Because I learned to trust at such an early age I trusted everyone because I thought everyone was like our family. Of course, as I grew up I learned that was not the case.

I remember in first grade wanting to learn music. We were each given a little plastic instrument that looked something like a flute and a music book. We were then shown how to place our little fingers on the instrument and learned how to play ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.’

After much practice each one was instructed to stand and play the song on our own as a solo. Never having stood in front of a group or played any instrument it was soon my turn. When you are 6 years old it is not a pretty sound. I was told by the teacher to sit down and that I would never play any type of musical instrument because I did not play well the first time.

Thinking my teacher was must be right, I never learned to play a musical instrument. What kind of thief came to my classroom that day? One that stole many things from a child who believed their teacher’s instruction. That left me with not knowing how to follow my dreams because I trusted what I thought my teacher saw in me. Did that teacher’s words have a lasting impact making a difference in my life? What happened and how do you think that it affected me in the days and years to come? It affected many areas of my life beginning with self esteem. It caused me to think that I may not be able to do many things that I dreamed about since it didn’t work the first time.

Moving forward in my life, I remember when I was about 8 years of age I made a decision to start smoking. During that time it was the cool thing to do. I remember the day, time of day and where I was when this happened. By age 11 I was smoking and continued for approximately 25 years. During those years I tried many times to stop but was unable to. I tried many different things but none of them ever worked. The thought to pray and ask God for help never crossed my mind. When I started this habit the cost $.25 per pack and when God delivered me the cost was $1.50 per pack. After smoking 2.5 packs a day I ended up spending a lot of money!

Who was the thief here and what was being stolen from me? Smoking takes your money, time and health just to start!

In the 80’s I came very close to dying from total kidney failure called interstitial nephritis. WOW! What is this and how did I get it? Right before I married in 1976 I began getting migraine headaches that became some type of headache everyday. To function, I started by taking some over the counter meds to help but they grew worse so I turned to the medical community for help. This lasted for approximately 13 years. Thousands of dollars later there was NO help but a lot of drugs. Then I went into total kidney failure from all the help received from the medical doctors and their practice.

So, who and what was the thief here? What was stolen…anything? To me the answer is yes….many, many things.

What about the friends and the places that you choose to hang around with or the career that you decided to pursue? I can personally say that if you do not take the time to look at the people that you decided to become friends with that you will eventually become like them in many ways. Unless you are a strong person you will begin to conform to their way of doing things.

Here are just a few examples…your speech will change to be more like them, your body language will change to become like them, your thought process will change to become more like them and why do you think that is? We all want to be accepted for who we are but we are willing to make whatever change to fit in so that a need to ‘feel a part’ is filled in our life.

If you were raised to be kind, respectful, and to watch what you say and a group that wants you to be like them is just the opposite, then guess what? You will become like them! It is very wise to stop and take a very long look at the friends that we choose to become close to. It is really ok to say no. Look and ask yourself “is that what I want for my life, to look and act like?” How is that all working out for them?

Is it working for them at home, at school, with family and on the job? If they have children, what is the example being set there? Who do you think that the thief working there might be? Do you think that someone’s destiny is being stolen? Perhaps it is and sometimes making wrong choices in choosing friends can cost much more than we ever expected to pay.

Remember, Jesus came to give us life and life more abundantly, it is the enemy that comes to steal, kill and destroy! This is part one of a number of my stories regarding how the thief worked in my life. However, these experiences eventually work for my good! Some took a long time, my prayer is that it not take so long for you.

I would love to hear your feedback and insight regarding what thief was working in my life during these stories.