Hello ,

In 1999, 25-year-old Christopher Miller was arrested after he forced employees into the back room of the Stride Rite shoe store on Hooper Avenue in Toms River, New Jersey. After a 15-year sentence, on Friday, March 21, 2014, Miller was released from South Woods State Prison in New Jersey. The very next day, Miller, now 40 years old, took a bus from Atlantic City to Toms River and went to the same shoe store.

Employees tell police that he entered the store and demanded cash, telling two workers to go to the back room. When the employees refused, Miller became agitated and took the cash register drawer, which had $389. He then took the workers' cell phones and fled on foot. Police say he was found a few blocks away, with the cash stashed in a gutter and the phones in a garbage can.

Toms River Police Chief Mitchell Little speculated, "Maybe [prison life is] the only life he knows, and the only thing he could think of was going back to the same store and doing the same crime again-getting caught and going back where he was taken care of and told what to do and getting meals and shelter and everything else."*

"And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, 'The old is better.'" Luke 5:39

Although the story above is an extreme example of staying with the "comfortable and familiar" things of this life, it is perhaps a telling reminder of how we can feel more comfortable with the old way of doing things in our lives.  If you've ever attempted to change your direction in life (whether it was eating better, exercising more, or attempting to stop an old habit), you recognize just how potent "old patterns" can be. 

The same can be said for spiritual things as well.  Change can be a very difficult concept to embrace...especially if we've been doing it the same way for years. Forming new "holy habits" can seem almost daunting at times. 

God is faithful, and Counting on our Creator to take us farther than we could have ever gone on our own can bring new excitement and a sense of peace into our lives.  

Have a great day and God bless!

Pastor Mike / The Open Word 

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