Intersections: Where Faith Meets Life – by Bob Weathers

It wasn’t the kind of thing you could just slip in your pocket and walk home with. But in July someone swiped a 12-foot bronze statue of a galloping horse and his youthful rider, a statue that weighed more than a ton.

Bob Weathers

The statue was one of two still standing at a defunct racetrack near Cherry Hill, N.J. The innovative thief skulked in during the night and sliced the sculpture right off its base, evidently using a front-end loader from a nearby construction site to transport his loot to a waiting truck. At first, no one even noticed. Attrition, neglect, new construction, and shifting scenery had obscured the statue and its partner from the view of everyday traffic.

So why would someone go to the trouble to steal this piece of bronze? For the money, of course. Cut up and sold for scrap, the pieces could fetch around $4,000. Sure enough, not long after the heist some pieces of the statue popped up in a salvage yard.

Apparently, the thief did not realize what he had. In pieces the sculpture was worth $4,000, but kept in one piece, it was worth $500,000. By disassembling it, he devalued it.

Who would have thought that a work of art, worth a fortune, would be tucked away on a back lot somewhere, hidden by brush and bushes? And a thief comes along, carries away the prize, and dismantles it. By that, he devalues and destroys it.

But this horse thief was simply mimicking the King of Thieves. Jesus described Satan as a thief, determined only “to steal and kill and destroy.” When we neglect our spiritual lives, he slips in, bent on stealing our spiritual growth and health. He picks us apart and dismantles us by sins and addictions and foolish decisions fueled by pride. And he convinces us that we have no value. That we are worth far less than is true.

But Jesus finishes the same verse this way: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). All of our value, and life as God meant it, is found in the secure care of God in relationship with Jesus.

With Satan, destruction. With God, life. Which would you choose?