This past July, my husband’s bike and Ellie’s bike were stolen off our front porch. In broad daylight. While there was a car in the driveway, and the babysitter was inside with the kids.
I found out by text while I was at the Philadelphia Christian Writer’s Conference, for which I was serving on faculty. The thefts hadn’t even been discovered until my husband got home from work and realized the bikes were no longer on the porch. He called the police, made a report, and then texted me.
I was angry. It was bad enough that they (whoever “they” were) had stolen my husband’s bike, but to steal from my child? Now I was really angry.
Fortunately for me, I was sitting at a table eating dinner with several other faculty when the text came in. These faculty were not only experts in their particular niches, but also men and women of prayer. One precious friend prayed out loud, as all of us bowed our heads, for the bikes to be returned and for God to receive the glory.
To make a long story short, God granted our request. A police officer friend on patrol found the bikes within a couple of days. Along with ours, he found two others that had been stolen from other families, and he had a wrecker come take all four bikes to the police pound. After the investigation was completed, the detective told us she had taken the “hold” off our bikes, and we could go get them. The only problem was that when we called the pound to find out the procedure for recovering our bikes, we were told that we would have to pay $33.75 for each bike (they were dividing the cost of the wrecker among the four bikes that were recovered).
I don’t understand this policy. It seems to me that the family of the teenager who stole the bikes should have to pay the fee. It doesn’t seem fair to me that I should have to pay to get my stolen property back.
And that’s the point. It’s not fair. But it’s also not all about the bikes.
I realized this one day when I had been complaining on Facebook about having to pay the fee. As I was sitting here at the computer, a private message from a sweet friend popped up. “You know, Meg,” the message went (I’m paraphrasing), “I really hesitate to try to teach anyone a spiritual lesson. I don’t want to come across as being superior. But there’s a lesson to be learned here.” She then proceeded to gently explain what God had shown her through my situation.
That’s what I want to share with you: that the lesson to be learned here is not about the bikes. The lesson is about God, His infinite holiness, and His infinite love.
Humanity is God’s creation. You and I belong to Him. Yet Satan slipped into that first Garden and “stole” us, in a manner of speaking, into His kingdom. We were still God’s creations, but now we inhabited the kingdom of darkness. And to get us back into His kingdom, God had to pay a price.
That’s why God sent Jesus to this earth, to buy us back. You read that right—God was willing to pay the price to buy back what was already His.
I, frankly, am not willing to pay the price to get my bikes back. I’m still trying to work out a way that I won’t have to do that. But God was willing to pay to get His property back. He was willing to make a payment He never should have had to make. And He didn’t just shell out $33.75 x 2, either.
He gave His own life.
And instead of trying to get out of the situation, as I am doing, He came right down into it.
My bikes didn’t willingly go off on their own. But you and I willingly departed from God, sinning against Him of our own volition. Yet He bought us back anyway. Even though we didn’t deserve it.
I don’t know whether or not I’ll ultimately have to pay to get my bikes back. I hope not, but I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that I will never forget the lesson my friend pointed out to me: God was willing to buy me back, even when I didn’t deserve it, and even at the cost of His own life.
This really isn’t all about the bikes. It’s about far more.
Colossians 1:13—He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.
1 Peter 2:9—But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.