The last of the great commandments given by God to Israel at Mount Sinai in order that they might reap the benefits of a blessable and blessed society cuts below the surface of the previous four commandments in a powerful way. It strikes at the underground spring from which many sinful acts are fed. Exodus 20:17 says, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” Where Exodus 20:13-16 forbids murder, adultery, theft, and legal deceit,[1] Exodus 20:17 says, “And don’t even think about them either!”
I was four when I defeated the temptation to steal. This doesn’t mean that I never stole anything again, twice more in my life before the age of 17, I would have to reconsider my definitions of “theft” and repent, but on that day, I killed something hideous in my soul and, thus far, it has stayed dead.
My mother had brought me and my three siblings to a stranger’s house, and we spent the day on their front porch digging through their kids’ toy box and playing. I took a fancy to this little rubber guy on a matchbox motorcycle. I wasn’t interested in the bike, just the guy. I liked the colors, the way it felt and flexed, his helmet and uniform. I wanted it… badly.
When you want something badly that isn’t yours and that craving becomes all-consuming, and your emotions wage war against your conscience with excuse after excuse for why its only right for you to take it, to do it… it is almost NEVER the right thing to do. Nay, let me bold. A nagging desire at war with conscience is NEVER the right thing to do.
I am uncertain how long we actually played on that porch… it seemed an age to me… perhaps it felt longer because of my own internal struggle… but I do know that I spent that time putting the little guy in my pocket, taking it out to gaze upon it, tossing it back into the toy box, digging it out again to gaze upon it again before putting it back into my pocket… over and over and over again.
I knew it was wrong to take it. I don’t know how I knew it was wrong. I can’t recall ever getting a specific lesson on theft, though I must have slept through a few different sermons on the matter in Church… maybe there were lessons in Sunday School, though I don’t remember any. Still, somehow, I knew that it wasn’t mine, that it belonged to another, that it would be a violation of something important to breach that relationship between owner and owned. Perhaps it was my own desire to possess what was mine that instinctively told me that stealing was wrong. “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you”[2] is intuitive to many even if they choose against its quiet bleating.
When it came time to leave, the little guy was in that part of the cycle (no pun intended) where he was in my pocket. We cleaned up our mess as this little guy burned a hole in my soul. Will I take it? Will I put it back? I want it. It is wrong to take it. It’s just a little thing. It’s not mine. They probably don’t even play with it anymore. It belongs to someone else.
My mother, carrying my little brother in one arm, took my hand and moved us all off the porch and through the yard back to our monstrosity of a dingy tan station wagon. I remember thinking even then how ugly it was. A 60s Chrysler Town & Country I believe. The second I made the choice my whole life changed. I pulled my hand from my mother’s and bolted back to the house as she called after me, a tad annoyed. I pulled that little guy out of my pocket and ran up the wooden steps and back onto the closed-in porch. I tossed it back into the toy box with a willful glee. I almost wondered if those around me heard it break… my heart certainly felt it break… the very temptation to steal.
Seriously! I have never even been tempted to steal another person’s possessions as long as I have lived from that moment on. I want my due, yes. I want what I’ve earned, but I have no interest in taking another person’s things. You could put a million dollars on a table and leave it unattended in my presence, and I would not feel the urge to take a dime of it even if I knew that its owner would never know.
Now, what really broke that day, was not theft. It turns out there are other drives behind theft than what broke that day, and I would face them in mortal combat later, but that day, a powerful form of covetousness died at the end of my spiritual sword… the sinful craving for other people’s things.[3]
Even now after so many years dancing on its grave, the words of Paul come clearly to me from 1 Corinthians 10:12- 13, “let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” Therefore, may the mirror of God’s word expose those places where covetousness still reigns, even secretly, in all our hearts. Ask for God’s help in killing it. There is great freedom in its demise.
Here is a prayer for the Christian. “Lord, teach my soul to be content with what I have. May the desire for improvement lead me not to covetousness, but to greater industry and greater charity toward all.”
~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD
[1] We’ve already discussed how deep and wide these commands are by way of the cultivation of a covenant heart for the Creator, but as enforceable legal codes we lay them out thus.
[2] Matthew 7:12.
[3] Runaway lust is another form of covetousness that demands its own personal war.
