I’ll never forget the sinking feeling I had one summer day some years back. I had gone out to get something out of my Jeep, and when I opened the driver’s side door there were my cassette tapes (my model was old!) strewn all over the seats of the car. My first thought was that my husband had made a mad search for something he needed. I came in and asked if he’d been looking for something in my car.

His reply was, “No, why?” After I explained what I’d found when I went out to my vehicle, it was obvious to us both that someone else had been searching through my car in the night. The thief had to be sorely disappointed, because I had nothing of value kept there, and the only tapes they found (and left) were Christian music tapes.

It gave me a truly strange feeling to know that some stranger had been rummaging through my car and my belongings, right outside my bedroom door while I slept! We learned that our neighbors had also been burglarized, some losing valuable possessions. We all began taking precautions against this happening again. I began locking my car and we left on a flood light through the night. These were things that we should have been doing all along, but instead we had left ourselves open to the thief because we thought we were safe.

I think how often I’m robbed of other things – things that I leave unprotected and unguarded, and as a result they are stolen away from me in a moment of distraction.

• I’m robbed of joy when I am not walking in the Spirit due to unconfessed sin.
  Galatians 5:22a – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, genleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance… When we are in fellowship with God, we have ALL of these!
• I’m robbed of what the Lord wants to teach me if I don’t discipline myself and make time to be in the Word.
  Proverbs 8:34 Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.
• I’m robbed of sweet time in my home when I choose to tear down instead of build up. 
  Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.Proverbs 14:1
• I’m robbed of peace when I don’t hide God’s Word in my heart. Psalm 119:50 This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.

John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

I have a choice now – to lock up my car and also to leave the light on in hopes of discouraging thieves, or I can leave everything as it was on the day the robbery happened. An even greater choice is the decision to lock up tight, and “leave the light on” in my spiritual life so I’ll be very aware of the thieves that desire to steal precious possessions the Lord wants me to enjoy!

Are you safeguarding against the thieves of your heart?