To The Thieves Who Stole My Car by David Achata

Saturday, January 16th, I walked outside to get into my car, and it wasn’t there. I thought for a moment that someone must have borrowed it, or maybe I forgot where I parked it – then I realized it had been stolen.

I called the cops. As we were filling out paperwork, my car was found, but it had been stripped to the bone. I guess a freshly painted Black 1997 Honda Civic EX with 205,000 miles is a hot commodity in Orlando! As I learned this new information, I thought to myself, “I can’t believe someone would steal a little Honda Civic . . . how low can you go?” I mean, why not steal a Lexus or an Audi or something with little more cash value?

As the thieves drove my car away and stripped it, no doubt they had to toss my bible from the driver’s seat into the passenger’s seat. Had they opened it, they would have seen “Pastor David Achata’s Bible” written in the front cover. Next to it they would have seen the notes from the sermon I had just preached to our Florida Hospital College students at Sonset Café’ that night. On the front page they would have seen written these words in bold:

“Our actions on the surface aren’t most significant; it’s what takes place in our secret lives, below the surface, that God is concerned about . . . ” How ironic.

I just finished studying through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. If you’ll read it through you’ll see that God is very concerned about what’s done in secret (Mt. 5:22, 28, 6:3-4, 6, 18, 28, 7:1 etc.). This is interesting because we are mostly concerned about what happens in public.

I was talking on the phone recently with my friend Ron. He told me that “spirituality is like an iceberg. What’s above the surface isn’t as significant as what’s below the surface.” Think about that for a moment.

Here’s my question: Are we more concerned about what goes on in public or in private? Jesus is more concerned about the secret life, and it’s not just the car thieves who have secret lives—everybody’s got their secret lives. What does your secret life tell you about the state of your heart? The same question goes out to the guys who stole my car.

While we look at the outward appearances of things, God is looking at the heart. (1 Sam. 16:7) This is why Jesus is so significant. While we spend so much time piddling around with surface issues, Jesus wants to go to the heart, because that’s where he can heal and change the whole organism. So let Jesus go there. Sometimes it takes time, but it’s so worth it.

In Matthew 7:24-25, Jesus said, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” A person secure in the solid foundation of Jesus has no need of a secret life . . . or someone else’s ’97 Honda Civic.

David Achata