I LOST MY CAR KEYS, or at least placed them where I couldn’t find them. I looked for almost an hour, enlisted the help of my wife and kids, and checked each place where I thought they could be at least three times. All to no avail. The good news is I did find them in the last place I looked. Where? In the ignition of my car. Right where I left them. Stop snickering, I can hear you!
As I finally got to go off for a Monday morning run I dwelt upon the key hunt of the previous hour. I had looked in the car, but my searching took me only as far as the seat and floor and the ground around the car. I never thought to look right where I was hoping to insert them in the first place! The lessoned I learned (once again) was when looking for something go back to the last place you know they were for sure, and that place for my keys would of course be the ignition.
Throughout the course of my life I have lost any number of things, (wallets, TV remotes, my mind) but the most worrisome is when I feel I have lost my relationship with the Lord. During those times I found little solace from bumper-sticker theology like, “Feel far from God? Guessed who moved?”
What I have found to help is to return to the last place where I was walking close to the Lord. Like returning to the ignition to discover my keys dangling and waiting to be turned. In truth, that’s the place I guess they should always be, but that’s another sermon. Suffice it to say, the key (pun intended) to restoration of my relationship is to return to where it was working last. I suppose that is what the Lord had in mind when He told the church at Ephesus to “Repent and do the things you did at first.” (Revelation 2:5) To return to our love for the Lord means just that, to return to first things. A lesson well-learned.