Don't Lose Hope, God Has The Keys...

So I was out with my sister, at a store she HAD to visit in one of the many lovely shopping complexes that absolutely litter my part of town.

I was annoyed, yet there I was.

After bearing the selection process, the line, the awkward conversation with the cashier, we were back in the parking lot.

“Now, where is the car?”

I walked, as most men do, by my God-given gift of instinct—in the wrong direction. In fact, everywhere I walked in this parking lot WAS WRONG! I tried to replay the memory tape in my head, re-visualize the walk to the store—I was lost every time, rather, the car was lost.

And there was my sister, who can be a bit of drama, especially during inconvenient moments such as these.

What got to me most about my situation—perhaps—was not being complained at or walking, even though I started to feel New York in my legs all over. What did it was that I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN where I was going, I should have known, but I didn't. And every speed walk down another hopelessly pointless lane, munched at my sense of pride.

For those that have followed this blog, thank you first, but secondly, I hope to be honest with you, because I think this might be therapeutic—my life is that parking lot these days. I keep walking up and down, the same aisles, it seems, with the same results: no rest, no answer. I want someone to take it easy on me—GOD, PEOPLE—someone to make me feel affirmed, but it doesn't always happen that way, does it?

Y'know, I think of Moses these days, I mean, really think—how were those first 40 YEARS in the desert (on the run for murder) (Exodus 2)? I imagine they weren't really comforting years. I don't remember reading about any great revivals in the desert while Moses tended sheep. He didn't even know what God wanted to do with him until he was 80!

And that's a truth I'm finding out about God, yes God is loving and patient and kind, but God is tough, and God will pull us through situations that will not give us the option of ignoring them or sleeping through them. They may very well hurt.

AND LET ME TELL YOU: from the perspective of one who wonders if his faith is not just leaking from him—it will take prayer just to pray, and faith to have faith (if you don't know what I'm talkin' about now, you will). You will have to preach to yourself and rely heavily on the Lord's grace.

But back to the car in the parking lot...

The one thing that gave me hope in that 30 minute search, was that I had the keys in my hand, and therefore, I knew I had a way home after that mess.

God holds the key to your solution.

Remember that.

In Him,

Jean-Marc

Revelation 1:17-18: “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”