Keys - 17 February 2010

It’s late in the evening, well past the kids’ normal bedtime and you’ve just returned home from sharing a meal with friends.  You feel the warm glow that comes from genuine friendship.  You park the car, extricate everybody from it, and walk up to your front door, fumbling for your house keys.  You search one pocket, then another, then another, before going back to the first one, all the while trying to appear calm and composed.  The warm glow from fellowship is waning and a feeling akin to panic is settling.  Then, if you’re a lady, you delve into that most mysterious of objects – the handbag – and root around in there.

“I’m sure I’ve got them” is the strangled utterance but such attempts at reassurance are ineffective.  You’re standing in front of you own house, it’s late, the kids are tired and restive and the bare fact is: you don’t have your keys!  You’re locked out!

Most of us will admit to experiencing something akin to the above scenario. You will recall the attendant emotions, the panic, the helplessness, and maybe the blaming game.  The fact is, without keys we’re stuffed!  We need keys for the house, car, shed, bike lock, garden gate, before we even think about work and all manner of access codes.  We live in a time when everything has to be locked up or bolted down.

As God’s people we regularly come across situations where we feel locked out, where we feel unable to make progress.  Certainly Joshua and the people of did when they came to Jericho.  The Bible says that “Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites”.  Our particular Jericho could be to do with a broken relationship, or a lack of provision, or a friend coming close to but not into the kingdom, or inability to break a habit.

We must recall that we are a people at war, just as the Israelites were.  As we make advances, the enemy will pull down the shutters and create strongholds, often intimidating us in the process.  In these situations we desperately need keys.  Praise God that we have access to a Master Locksmith – the Lord Jesus Christ.  Very often keys will be released to us as we seek God with prayer and fasting.  How we need His wisdom, knowledge, insight and discernment.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that all authority on heaven and earth has been given to you. Show me how to draw on that authority in my life. Amen