Today I lost my keys and it threw off my whole morning. I am usually not a forgetful person, but I had to run an errand and in the midst of the rain and rushing to get back to my responsibilities, I misplaced my key. For whatever reason, I have simplified my keys to just one car key and not the normal handful of keys, don’t ask me why, I don’t remember but it sure made it hard to find. I had a meeting I had to get to and so I was searching frantically in all the nooks and crannies where I had last been. Long story short, I finally found my key, but I found several other things too. I found some missing socks, an important charging cord for a phone or IPad and where my missing heating pad has been all of this time.
These may seem like minor things and they are, but if I hadn’t lost my key, when would I have eventually found them? I don’t know, like I said, I am not a forgetful person and I don’t lose things often, but maybe sometimes, lostness can be a good thing. Maybe needing to slow down and look can give you a new perspective. It is probably why I enjoy traveling or going on new adventures that I have never explored, because lostness can be a chance to find something you may be missing.
I believe that God is a God that isn’t afraid of our lostness, or our forgetfulness. Sometimes our brains are going a mile a minute and we lose track of what task is before us. Our minds were never intended to be as fast pasted or cluttered as it seems we are this day. I know it is not just me, but in any five-minute block of the day, I could have five or six voices calling for my attention. The voice of a loved one or colleague asking a question, a call on my cell phone or office line, a notification from one of the kid’s school or a news update, an email for work or from the doctor, a person passing by that needs attention or a hug, and that doesn’t even take into effect our heart, soul and mind. It is too much, too much clutter, too much noise.
All of that to say it can be exhausting. Maybe lostness is a blessing.
I don’t know what you are feeling in this new year with new challenges and so much division around us. I don’t know if you are feeling lost or wanting to get lost. But let me encourage you that lostness isn’t always a problem. Sometimes being lost allows you to take the time to look in the nooks and crannies of the places that collect dust and are hard to reach. Maybe those “hard to reach” places are the anxieties you hold deep down, your fear of the future, your anger that hasn’t been resolved, your bitterness toward a person or position that has caused much pain, or your lack of forgiveness for your yourself or someone else. What are those “hard to reach places” in your soul where a missing set of car keys could be hiding? It could be that in slowing down long enough to find essential things like keys, you realize just how much abundance you have in your life (or how much you desperately need to dust under your couch). When those places of darkness and dust have light shine upon them, and preferably the all-encompassing, loving light of Jesus, you can pull out those things that have been tucked away and dirty for far too long and the Holy Spirit can begin to do her good work on them.
Either way, here is my permission to get lost a little bit from time to time because the God that made every nook and cranny within you isn’t afraid of a disordered or misplaced child. I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt because the God we know in Jesus has always been in the business of finding us and shining light on the darkest of places.