Robber and Victim that prays together…stays together?

I found the story so fas­ci­nat­ing about a 23-​year-​old man named Greg Smith who was rob­bing a check cash­ing busi­ness when the cashier Angela Montez who was his vic­tim began to appeal to him (on the basis of her belief in God) for him to not com­mit this crime.

I was very touched when this woman began to pray and this young man began to cry and pray along with her. Then he went on to take the bul­let out of his gun and promise the woman that he wouldn’t hurt her. This story really moved me. It made me empathize with this young man as well as the vic­tim (not for­get­ting that this man was a stranger to this woman and she was no doubt ter­ri­fied). Now while some may not be sym­pa­thetic at all to this crim­i­nal I can’t help but to empathize with what was going through his head. Why was he com­mit­ting this crime?

It reminded me of the state of this world and how so many can lose their way. This young man was obvi­ously some­one who had a con­science though because this woman’s prayers moved him to tears and to maybe even ask for for­give­ness from his cre­ator. Some who face a gen­uine strug­gle for sur­vival have acted in ways that they never thought imag­in­able. Recent news reports have told the sto­ries of older peo­ple even resort­ing to bank rob­bing as a means of pro­vid­ing for their basic needs. Or as was par­o­died in the movie “Fun with Dick and Jane” peo­ple who were for­merly well to do indi­vid­u­als have also resorted to crime.

It truly makes me sad but also reflects some­thing that the bible says, “Mere oppres­sion may make a wise one act crazy” (Ecclesiastes 7:7 NWT). Sometimes when peo­ple feel hope­less they do things that may be com­pletely out of char­ac­ter. Or due to envi­ron­ment they develop a pat­tern of crim­i­nal behav­ior because in many cases that is all they know. Recently I was asked the ques­tion, “Where do you see your­self in five years?” While I had an answer some don’t have an answer to that ques­tion. Some peo­ple see them­selves dead in five years because of where they are.

Some peo­ple have no goals, no hope for the future and absolutely noth­ing to truly live for. The result of that atti­tude cre­ates des­per­a­tion. Desperation along with a feel­ing of oppres­sion or being boxed in cre­ates a thriv­ing envi­ron­ment for a per­son to com­mit crimes. Sometimes these feel­ings are not the result of any exter­nal pres­sures but the result of an inter­nal one. That age old strug­gle between right and wrong, which is inher­ently within all of us.

This post is not a forum for try­ing to explain that crim­i­nals are good peo­ple on the inside. No way. Some peo­ple who com­mit crimes don’t care. At all. They don’t care about you or your life or even their own lives. Taking a life for some is very easy and causes no pain or remorse. But for some this is not the case.

I don’t know this pray­ing rob­bers his­tory (although he did rob once before) but it is obvi­ous to me that every per­son who per­pe­trates a crime does not fall into the cat­e­gory of a hard­ened crim­i­nal. While they still have to face the con­se­quences of their actions as this man will. What stood out to me in this story though is that this man was wor­ried about going to jail because he asked the woman to not turn him in, but he was also wor­ried about the true judge of us all.

This fact remains to be lost on many. Regardless of what we expe­ri­ence in this life we all have to answer to some­one. At present we are con­cerned with the judg­ments of men as in the case of this young man. But, at some point we will all have to answer to our cre­ator. Whether we choose to believe in him or not. With that in mind will we hum­ble our­selves the way that this crim­i­nal did?

Thanks for read­ing,