Locked Out of My Life
Wow I have been so negligent in blogging while publishing my new book. Praying I can get back into this discipline of blogging once a week. Here is one I got today:
On Friday I had a meeting at the end of the day off site at a coffee shop down the street from my office. I was running out, closed my office door and BAM - I locked my keys in my office! No big deal right? Just find someone with an office master key to let you back in, right?
Problem is the master key one of my co-worker has doesn’t work on my administrative office and there are only 2 people in our organization with keys to my office: one was on vacation in Florida and the other has Fridays off.
I quickly call my co-worker who was headed to the coffee shop meeting to come back and get me so I don’t miss that meeting. I then call my husband (who was all the way in Mississippi) and ask if he can turn around and come pick me up at the coffee shop and get me to my next 6 pm meeting scheduled at the Starbucks by our house with a client I am meeting with to help with a legal matter - yes I like meeting at coffee shops lol.
After that 6 pm meeting I wanted to leave and spend the last few days of my kids’ spring break in Nashville. Well that couldn’t happen with my car stuck downtown in the work parking lot.
The simple act of locking my keys in the office inconvenienced others to come help me while stranded and changed our whole weekend plans. I was without all my keys for the entire weekend. My husband and I drove the next day downtown with my spare key and brought my car home. I was forced for several days to use this single spare key to get around - for those who know me, this is dangerous having a single key that is easy to loose!
Monday morning when I got to work the two people with my office keys weren’t in until 10 am. So I sat at a desk outside my office and casually chatted with co-workers. When the door finally got opened I sighed in relief, looked down at my office table, and there they were - my keys! After experiencing all the inconveniences and frustrations, I whispered under my breath, “God thank you - I HAVE BEEN LOCKED OUT OF MY LIFE ALL WEEKEND!”
**Yes I know...a little dramatic** But that's what I whispered.
Almost like a gentle nudge I hear, “How many times do you shut the door, not let Me in, and keep Me locked out of your life for the whole weekend? Think of how I feel!”
Ouch!
Honestly, all too often I don’t make room and shut the door on God for a day or two.
It got me thinking about ways we in essence shut the door to God:
We don’t spend time in prayer or open our word and walk around with a spare key which was a word from several days ago. God has somewhere new to drive us today with the master key and not a spare back up key that we got a few days ago in His word and in His presence. He has fresh manna TODAY behind the doors we have kept closed for 48 hours.
God says He’s given us the “keys to the kingdom of heaven” and “whatever [we] bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever [we] loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” These are warfare words that unleash heaven on earth! How many days have gone by that we haven’t unleashed heaven’s power with our key?
So what’s the big deal? It’s only a few days and then I pick up the keys and open the door to God. Just like the small mishap of accidentally locking my keys in the office for the weekend changed our whole plans for the weekend (we didn’t get to go to Nashville), our act of locking God out has the potential to impact God’s plan.
Who knows what He would have revealed to us had we obediently spent time in His presence and in His word? Who knows what we would have unleashed had we taken our God keys to the kingdom of heaven and bound and loosed for someone. We could have missed an assignment in a grocery store or with a family member by casually not making Him a priority for a few distracted days.
When we lock our God given keys to the kingdom of heaven away for a few days and don’t bind and loose, we have effectively kept the door shut where heaven’s power resides. Now, I believe in God's sovereignty... He can and will use someone else’s key to accomplish His deeds when we miss our assignments…but I stopped and asked myself - how many divine opportunities have I missed because I didn’t pick up my key for a few days and essentially locked God out like I was locked out this weekend?
I (as the owner of the keys locked in my office) was frustrated about being "locked out of my life" for a few days. I can only imagine how much more God (as the owner of heaven’s keys) is frustrated when we hold His keys and shut and/or lock the door and don’t use the authority He's given us?
God thank you for "locking me out of my life" for a few days, with all the minor annoyances. And for whispering in my ear the morning I gained access to my keys locked in my office (see them there on my desk) about how I regularly shut the door to you. Help me to not just hold your keys, but to use your keys daily!
