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Many thoughts flashed through my head, including, and not the least of which was, I loved this little Mac. I gathered my courage and went inside the station. When I placed the computer on the counter at the police station, I thought I knew what Abraham must have felt like when the Lord asked him to sacrifice his only son. But just like Abraham, I was delivered from putting the love of the gift before my love of the Giver.


The officer behind the counter asked, "What is this?"

I said, "It's a computer. I think it's stolen."

"Where did you get it from," he asked.

"I bought it," I answered.

"Hmmm!" The officer said, "We don't get people doing this!"

Then I heard the devil saying, "You fool, you could have kept it, or sold it to someone else."

Then from behind the counter a sergeant sitting at a desk said, "Yeah, but you're doing the right thing."

What relief I felt. God put that man there, I thought. Anyway, the officer who had written down the serial numbers, came out from behind the counter with a sheet of paper and told me, "We don't see it here on the hot sheet. But you go home and we will get it back to who it belongs to."

I felt great. I was going to get out of there without being asked who I had gotten it from. Better yet, they didn't arrest me. I had never been a "good guy" before and I didn't know how it worked. However, I felt so sad because I had lost my computer.

As I walked across that long floor and was starting down the stairs, I heard someone call out, "Mr Alves!" I turned to see the officer waving me back to the counter.

"Look," he said. "You paid for the computer. Why don't you take it with you. I will just sign my name to the hot sheet and write a note saying you came in to try to get it back to it's owner. You can use a copy of this as a receipt."

A Ram in the Bush

By the way, I still have that copy of the hot sheet, laminated and yellowed with age. I kept it as a sign of how doing the right thing and trusting God is always best. Not that I always do. I fall short time and again. But, I think I know a little bit of how Abraham felt when the Lord provided a ram in the bush, and he got his son back. He loved his son so much, but now with a different love, and not more than the way he loved the Lord. Thank you, Jesus, for being my ram in the bush.
I'm writing this seventeen years later. The Lord has taken me from a small room in a half-way house to a fully paid for, ten room, five acre home. I have a successful computer business, but it's a ministry first and a business second. God is awesome! My company specializes in new and used computer sales, repair, service and consulting.

Eventually I served on the board of directors at that same half-way house where I lived. Me, a delivered wretch.