The Key to Life is not a Key

Look at all these uniquely shaped keys...

 

We bought the cutest piece of wall décor the other day….and useful too.  Someone glued various sizes and shapes of keys on the front of a wooden plaque.  Down along the edge, there were wooden pegs to hold your own sets of keys.  We hung it on our wall.  A few days went by, maybe even a week.  I glanced up from my position, sitting on the living room floor, and noticed the key plaque.  It clearly spelled the word KEYS.  What!!!  I thought they were just randomly placed objects.  They held a message with purpose!

In different light the word was clearly seen...

 

What is surrounding you and just under your own nose?  Each of us is like those keys.  God has placed people in our lives on purpose.  We all experience victories and failures.  Some of us wander what we believe to be aimlessly.  Some of us settle for a lifetime and never move.  Some head to the mission field.  Some stay at home, supporting.  Perhaps our lives look like lots of random choices, full of fortune and chance. 

Aspiring young chemist experimenting with silicone...

 

However, God is designing something beyond comprehension that includes all of us human beings from past to present.   My oldest son, who aspires to be a chemist, recently learned and created a few different polymers in the lab at George Fox University.  He came home and told me that human DNA is basically a polymer at the molecular level…..created and moldable.  If only our hearts and spirits could be the same…More info on DNA polymer

Teaching his siblings a mini science lesson at home...

Every time I see that plaque I think to myself, “How could I have not seen the word KEYS?”  Now I only see the word and not the randomness.  Some day the Bible tells us that “Every knee will bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”    The events taking place in our world today are not random and given to chance.  Nor are the people surrounding you day to day. 

God is creating and molding each one of us into something unique.  The Bible says He is preparing a place for us as well, for an eternity.  We don’t have to cram it all in this life.  A lot of our hopes, dreams, and desires can wait.  If there’s a lot of striving going on in your life, maybe you’re doing too much.  Perhaps you’ve lost your joy and gladness in the simple things.

 If there’s a lot of twiddling of thumbs in your life, maybe you’re not doing enough.  Ask God, He’ll direct you and knows best.  The more you love, the more love you have, the more you give, the more you can give, the more you serve, the easier it is to serve more.  I just read somewhere that you should ask a busy person to do a task because they will always find the time to do one more thing, while the person who has little to do may never find the time.  Ironic isn’t it?

Take a step back from your circumstances and look at them from a distance.  Be patient, something I struggle with immensely!  Perhaps you’ll find encouragement as you realize that God is using them to spell something beautiful in your life.  “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”  Psalm 34:8 Trust Him, He alone is worthy.

I am in the process of sending out into the world, should the Lord tarry, a chemist, an artist, a writer, an editor, a home manager, maybe a politician or lawyer, a care giver, a nurse, a nutritionist, a metal worker, a librarian, and one happy lumber truck driver!  There may be more, who knows what they will become, but God does. 

For those of you Mom's and Dad's at home and in the workplace, this verse is for you: "The Lord gave the word:  great was the company of those that published it.  Kings of armies did flee apace:  and she that tarried at home divided the spoil."  (Psalm 68:11,12) Let's spread the news, there's glorious freedom in the Lord Jesus Christ and you can't have it any other way.

We don't have to do great things for the Lord, we just need to open our eyes to the things He's already doing.  We can stand back amazed and watch Him do His work, His way!