If you live in the country, you'd better be careful. You may discover your neighbors are moonlighters. Literally. Just check your garden. If there are footprints hidden among the cornstalks, or teethmarks on the cabbage leaves, you'll know for sure. There's all kinds of culprits - deer, rabbits, moles, raccoons, cutworms. And they don't play fair! Those rascals creep out under the cover of darkness while you're asleep, and begin to feast on your hard-earned fruits! By the next morning, all that's left of some plants are the points of stems sticking out of the ground, or a single munched-on leaf waving sadly in the breeze. Oh, and the squished, rejected tomatoes that fell to the ground and got stepped on as the culprits left, fat and happy.
I was thinking recently how darkness sometimes enters our lives. We find ourselves passing through a season of the "night" - a time of adversity, when everything seems to go wrong. Not enough money to pay the bills. A dreaded surgery looms like a giant, blocking from your vision, the brightness of your future. Caring for that terminally ill parent or child fills your days. Rebellious kids weighs you down like a dump-truck load of bricks. Looking for some peace and quiet? Silence can become oppressive when all you're left with is an empty house when the one dearest and closest to you passes on. When the kids have all grown up and flown the coop. Or maybe you have yet to find your "knight in shining armor" or "fair maiden", and you live alone, wondering as time passes if you ever will. Night comes in many different shades, but its shadows are cast all the same.
And often, that's when the thief slips in. We don't notice him at first, but he's there. John 10:10 says that the "thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy". And you know what he's after? Our fruit. (Galatians 5:22-23) He wants to steal our peace. Our joy. Our contentment. Our faith, our trust in God. Our love for others. He doesn't perform a stick-up with all its drama. He's like a pick-pocket, stealing our fruits silently and sneakily. And one day, we wake up to discover that, rather than looking to the Lord, we've been focusing on the broken, trampled dreams that lie scattered and "squished" at our feet. It is then that we must ask the Caretaker of our lives to "restore unto me the joy of thy salvation", for only He "restoreth my soul". If we are sincere, He will not turn us away. Joel 2:25 gives us God's promise, "And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten...".
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