You little Thief

AFL ruckman Simon Madden shared his thoughts on what is permissible under the rules of football.

This is probably true for all of us. Trying to get away with as much as we can. Call it what you like; pushing the boundaries, stretching the truth, or just plain cheating. Dishonesty lies at the heart of it. Of course, some attempts at cheating are more elaborate than others. Take for example, Stella Walsh. Winner of the 100 metres at Los Angeles Olympics in 1932, she was also the first woman to break 11 seconds for the distance. Or was she? Walsh died in 1980 from a gun shot wound received as a bystander in a hold-up in Cleveland. The autopsy uncovered something unexpected; she was actually a he!

Some forms of cheating are more frowned upon that others. We rationalise that drug cheats in sport are bad, but that in comparison sledging is almost fairplay. However, the Bible doesn't make a distinction between big sins and little sins. Doing the wrong thing is doing the wrong thing. Size, in this case, does not matter.

But why do we continue to do it? It's not as if we don't know that such things wrong. It should be on the list of early lessons we learn as a small children. Don't cheat, don't lie. Perhaps it's that little bit of bad in all of us that we do our best to suppress most of the time. Perhaps it's our selfish nature that tells us that we always want more than we currently have. Not nice thoughts really, but maybe there's more truth here than we're often prepared to admit.

In the end, when we are less than honest in our dealings, it demonstrates a lack of faith in God's abilities to provide for our true needs. It's time to us be different and to show more trust in God's abilities to provide for all our real needs.


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