“Thou shalt not Steal;” Genesis 20:15

                                                              That’s It?

God didn’t elaborate on just what He meant.  Just what is stealing anyway?  You would say. “Taking something that doesn’t belong to you.”  Sounds so simple.   Could there be a deeper meaning that we are missing?  No wonder the rabbis spend a lifetime contemplating this command. 

I certainly haven’t spent much time thinking about this commandment.   We all feel safe.  We have never stolen anything.  We aren’t thieves.  We didn’t rob houses.  We never took a shirt from Walmart!

God might just have something else in mind when he told Moses to write this down.

Perhaps God meant not taking from Him.  How can we take anything from God?  He is the Giver, and we receive. 

Every good and perfect gift is from Him.  But we also could be stealing from Him. 

We steal time!  We take the time he has allotted to us and spend our minutes/ hours doing for ourselves.  Time stealing is a major problem for all of us.

Stealing is an active verb.  Stealing involves action.   Stealing time from God can be subtle but still active.    We spend wasted time on caring for ourselves.  Not all bad.  We do need our down time. However, time is a precious commodity.

 Just perhaps we are stealing time from God.  Doing good works, helping others,  study, worship.  These are good uses of our precious time.  These are active uses our time. 

Could you give up that TV show for worship?  Could you stay an extra hour helping and listening to a friend who needs you?  Could you visit the sick friend in a hospital.  Just being there. 

We show our love to God by how we care for the time given us. 

                                                Let us not steal from God. 

                                                 We can be reformed thieves!