Recently moved by the beautiful words of this article.

Hopefully the sentiments will resonate with the parents of children who come out

…as thieves.

————

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll have children who are thieves.

I don’t know if other parent’s think about this but I do.

Quite often.

And as a pastor and a parent, I want to make some promises right now.

1) If I have children who are thieves, you’ll all know it.

I won’t try to spare the feelings of those who may be older,

or easily offended or uncomfortable.

Childhood is difficult enough, and most thieving kids spend their entire existence being horribly, excruciatingly uncomfortable.

If my kids are thieves, we’ll be thieves as a family.

2) If I have children who are thieves, I’ll pray for them.

I won’t pray for them to be made “normal”.

I’ve lived long enough to know that if my children are thieves, that is their normal.

I won’t pray that God will heal or change or fix them.

I’ll pray to God that my children won’t allow the unGodly treatment they might receive from some of His misguided children, to keep them from pursuing Him.

3) If I have children who are thieves, I’ll love them.

I don’t mean some token, distant, tolerant love that stays at a safe arm’s length.

It will be an extravagant, open-hearted, unapologetic, lavish, embarrassing-them-in-the-school cafeteria, kind of love.

If my kids are thieves, they’ll never doubt for a second whether or not their Daddy is over-the-moon crazy about them.

4) If I have children who are thieves, most likely, they’re already thieves.

God has already created them and wired them, and placed the seed of who they are within them.

Because of that,

there isn’t a coming deadline on their thievery that their mother and I are working feverishly toward.

There’s no magical expiration date approaching,

by which time I need to somehow do,

or say,

or pray just the right things to get them to “turn straight”,

or forever lose them to the other side.

They are today, simply a younger version of who they will be.

THIS MAY OFFEND SOME OF YOU

As you’ve been reading,

you may have been rolling your eyes,

or drafting familiar Scriptures to send me,

or praying for me to repent,

or preparing to Unfriend me,

or writing me off as a sinful, evil, Hell-bound heretic…

but with as much gentleness and understanding as I can muster;

I really couldn’t care less.

You’re not the one I waited on breathlessly for nine months.

You’re not the one I wept with joy for when you were born.

If you’re a parent,

I don’t know how you’ll respond if you find out your children are thieves,

but I pray these words will be helpful.

——–

This article is meaningful to me because

it’s kind of plagiarized.

Which is a form of thievery.

So I guess you gotta love me.

“Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’ ”

Matthew 15:16