I lost my keys

I lost my keys this fall and can only now just talk about it.  It has taken me this long to come to grips with the frustration and concern I had for losing them as well as how they were found.  It was an ordeal I do not wish to go through again.

Right now I have 4 sets of keys that I am the guardian and keeper of, keys that I am steward of.  Set number one is the vehicle ring.  I keep a key for every vehicle on my ring and keep those keys at hand just in case.  I don’t have my own vehicle right now, but I could end up driving anyone of the three that our family owns on any given day.

The second set of keys are for football and track, for me as a coach to use to get into the building or to the equipment that we need for day to day practice.  These keys get me to my locker, to the tackling dummies and to the bathrooms.  Pretty important to be able to serve the students and parents of our community.

The third set is rarely used, but very important.  These keys are for the hardware store that functions as heated storage that my family uses to work on cars and keep our treasures.  If I want access to the tools, vehicles, or furniture that doesn’t “fit” in our homes I need these keys.

It is the fourth set that I lost, these are the keys to my office, the gun cabinet, the range, and the house.  These keys that I use on a daily basis went missing.  I searched everywhere.  Where was I that I didn’t need to use the keys that I cannot find and where did they get put so that I remember them?  This question haunted me for weeks as my daily search continued.

I am not God, but I began to feel like God.  I was looking for my lost sheep, my lost coin, or my lost son.  Jesus took time to share these parables to help people understand God’s loving compassion for those that are far from Him.  God searches for what is valuable to Him, but the best part is He already knows where we are and is calling us to be found.

In Luke 15:9 in the parable of the lost coin, Jesus reveals God’s joy at finding what was lost: 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.'  There is great joy from God in finding what was lost, we continue in repentance and God continues to rejoice.  We join in with joy at witnessing God’s work in people’s lives.

My keys don’t really matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, we found them after a few weeks in a place where they should have been found.  I felt joy at finding them and frustration at losing them in the first place.  Yet when people turn to God, we can all rejoice together.  Join in with the work of God, praise Him for finding us, orchestrating our repentance, and giving us time to find our way back.

Let us rejoice in what God has done and how He has found His people.