The Stolen Package

Virtually every week, someone near me posts about packages that have been stolen.  The Amazon trucks roam daily through our neighborhood, as do the US Postal Service, UPS, and FedEx.  They check their routes, walk a package to the door or to the mailbox, and they leave.  But in the last few years as delivery has supplanted so many trips to a brick-and-mortar location, “porch pirates” have become a familiar sight.

It’s maddening to think that someone has ordered and sent payment, that retailers and distributors have managed the logistics of getting a package from their warehouses to a delivery service, that a driver has protected and delivered that package to its designated address.  Everyone in the supply line has done what was appropriate and yet, the entire process can be thwarted from a person trailing those trucks and making quick stops to snatch a package from the porch.

Our souls are haunted by porch pirates, too!  The joy of our salvation can be swiped by a tempter who leads us to compromise.  The confidence we have in Jesus can be swiped by a judgmental and pious person who just wants to add a little more “law” to the mix–law that can’t possibly be fulfilled.  Our sense of identity can be stolen by the nicknames, the “performance-earned love” that other people can convince us to accept.  These and so many other “heists” rob us of our joy, peace, confidence, and emotional well-being.

We must confront the pirate–on the porch of our conversations, our beliefs, we must choose to lean on the truth:  “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.  And the life I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God who LOVED me and GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME.”  You see, their piracy is embodied in lies.  And the only way to deal with a lie is to confront it with the truth.

If we confront the pirate with the truth, Jesus’ promise will come alive.  The truth really will set us free!