A Life without Keys

I noticed something interesting about my life on Saturday.  For the first time in I do not know how long (since I was a kid), I own no keys.  I have nothing to get into to go somewhere, no place to call a home to enter, and even no cell phone pin code to unlock.  I have a life without keys.  Wait, I do have a keyboard that I am typing on, at least that is something with “keys” in it.  It is 6:23 am as I write and I have been up for several hours trying to get my body adjusted to CST, all to no avail so far.  So today, I want to reflect upon “keys”.

            Keys allow us in places.  Keys help protect us as they lock us in behind doors. Keys keep dangerous things locked up.  Keys can be frustrating when you cannot find them and they can take up a lot of room in your pocket if you are really important.  None of those I can relate to at the moment as they are for now, a thing of my past.  Though I have no physical set of keys, I am reminded this morning that I do have keys of even greater value than I can ever understand.  Jesus said it in this way:

“I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

            Though I have no physical keys at the moment, I see that God is working on me to understand that I have been given “the keys to the kingdom of heaven”, and that is simply enough for now.  Though this change has come upon my life not the time frame I have desired, I still feel important this morning, not by what I own that keys can fit into, but that I have been given the keys to the kingdom to see it extended in the world.

            The truth is, though it would be nice to have a car, our life is made simpler not owning anything but clothing and a couple of computers.  Maybe having so many physical keys is a distraction to our spiritual lives.  The more keys we have, means the more stuff we have that is of earth to worry about or to have to take care of.  So, I will treasure these days of no keys, and ask the Father to deepen my understanding of having the “keys to the kingdom of heaven”.  For I know, that I will have to buy some keys in the days ahead, and maybe I should be better prepared spiritually for when I do have them in my hand.