My Experiences With A Kleptoman
My Experiences With a KLEPTOMANIAC
I would never have dreamed he was a thief! Our acquaintance had been so friendly and casual. It started one Tuesday evening in August at my front door.
“An entertainer turned salesman” was his smiling approach to me. But I was not to be taken off my guard so easily. I prodded him about his backround. “Who are you with?” I asked. He confessed that he had ties with several of the largest distilleries. He also had accounts with a number of prosperous breweries. “At present,” he continued, “I’m an agent for a leading national magazine.”
So I let him come into the living room and listened to him for a couple of hours. On learning of his connections, I took pains to tell him of my Christian faith and love for Christ.
“There is no place in my life for liquor or beer,” I told him deliberately. “As a Christian my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.” I was sure these words would bother or offend him. But he was totally undisturbed by my convictions. He would hold his views, I could hold mine. This status quo was to mark all our subsequent discussions.
In a light-hearted moment he began to tell an off-color story. I was quick to inform him that such things were not allowed in my home. In fact, I cut him off sharply.
As you may imagine, I had reservations about the truth of many of his stories. Still, I must admit that his experiences often excited me. After an interesting evening with him, I invited him to come back the following night. I may have a helpful influence on him, I thought naively.
But my wife reminded me that his return visit would conflict with our church’s midweek prayer meeting. “I should attend,” I confessed, “but I must stand by the invitation I have given this friend.” I shared with her some of the things he had said to me. But she was reluctant to accept him. “I just don’t trust him,” she said. She grew steadily more concerned as he took up more and more of our family life.
My entire day was boring in comparison with my evenings with this character. He had an imagination that was captivating. Sometimes I would laugh myself sick at all his crazy experiences. At other times my hair would stand on end. His scrapes with the law were absolutely breathtaking.
If his stories were true, he was also an extra in motion pictures. But he couldn’t talk about this without including sex and violence. This forced me to cut him off again and again.
Then he began to affect my teenage son, Charles, and my nine-year-old daughter, Eloise. They just couldn’t wait to catch his latest quip or hairraising tale. They would have stayed up until well after midnight if we had allowed it. All this distraction hurt their studies and did their health little good. I began to worry about this fellow’s presence in our home.
And then it came – the straw that broke the camel’s back. One day several of my best books turned up missing. I searched in vain for them. “This fellow may be something of a thief,” I concluded. “If he is, who can tell what else he’s taken from us?”
It all looked very suspicious. The next day I was so upset about it that I decided to check on him next door. Sure enough, he had taken things there too. I was amazed by his subtle maneuvers. They certainly confirmed my wife’s original point of view.
In one home he had entered as a religious teacher. “He has revealed the truth of our modern cults,” they said. Another neighbor, a salesman, knew him as an efficiency expert. “He’s showing me the latest gimmicks,” he explained, “the sort of thing a successful salesman can put to use.” He certainly had a lot of ways of getting in.
I suggested that all of these people check their belongings. Most of them found something missing. At one friend ‘s home I noticed that the Christian magazines were gone. In another the Bible had disappeared. I was surprised to hear that their Sunday and midweek church service time was spent with this fellow. As I left this house, the husband told me that his family no longer met together for Bible reading and prayer.
A few days later I met this fellow entertaining at a neighbor’s. He paid little attention to me, and I was glad for it. I had come to talk with their teenage daughter about her faith in Christ. But this fellow monopolized the whole evening’s conversation. He stole all serious thinking from her mind and heart. I was sick about it.
Finally, I just had to say a word to the girl’s mother about this lack of courtesy. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “it’s that way all the time.” I found that she also had a five-year-old boy who was emotionally maladjusted from loss of sleep, all because of this fellow’s visits. I walked home deeply concerned and wondering what I might do.
I finally realized that my visitor was afflicted with kleptomania. Like an experienced thief, he had stolen my books, magazines and time. But the chief things missing were my close friendship with Christ and the evenings spent talking with my friends and family. I’m sure that others are having similar experiences.
Some have lost things of real value – not trifles but precious family things they once enjoyed together. Spiritual, social and intellectual experiences have been taken from them, replaced by only a moment’s crackpot amusement.
This fellow is not in our home now. If I could keep him in his place, he would be quite harmless to have around. Kleptomaniacs are not always deliberately bad. Even this one would occasionally drop in with profitable tidbits of news and some light humor. But you must keep your eyes open, or such a person will continually steal things from you.
I still see him now and then at my neighbor’s. And he still keeps them laughing or excited hour after hour. I’ve been trying to recall his name so you will be alerted about him and his many subtle methods. It escapes me, and I’m not sure now that he actually gave it. But I will never forget his initials. They were T.V.
I wonder what T.V. has robbed from you. Time? Devotions? Good reading? Wholesome conversation? Church attendance? Check your list and see! You may be very surprised at what you’ll find missing!
This sly character reminds me of a wild horse. You have to sit tight with a firm hold on the reins, or he will run away with you. If you don’t control him, he will control you. When you learn to treat T.V. the way Paul treated his body, then he will stay in his place. “I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships] and make it my slave, lest possibly, . . . I myself should be disqualified” (I Cor. 9:27, NASB). With this type of treatment T.V. will stay in its place. Better still, you will experience the joy of keeping your affections on things which are above.
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