Keys or Locks?

Last week as I walked through a parking lot I stumbled upon a lost key.  I looked at it and found myself wondering who lost it and what it opened.  As I pondered my discovery, it occurred to me that we all have keys.  We go through life collecting keys of experience and knowledge that will open problems and challenges locked away from those without our perspective and wisdom gathered through the years.

Then there are the locks that need to be opened.  They are the things we strive to overcome and have the potential to keep us from our 'promised land.'  We all have keys and locks but we do not all approach them in the same way.  Some of us are looking for keys and some of us are looking for locks.  What kind of person are you?  Maybe you are struggling to find a reason and purpose for a very difficult experience which has come into your life; you have the lock but are looking for a key.  Or perhaps you are at peace with the challenges of your life but do not know how to share that perspective with others; you have the key and are looking for the lock.  That's why we need one another - to share our keys and locks and help each other meet the common (and not so common) tests of life with a victorious perspective. We may have the very thing that will bring meaning or significance to someone else's lock or key.

Try to keep that in mind when you have a difficult experience and are presented with a lock or when you uncover an answer and find a key.  There may be someone very near you who needs what you have. Keys and locks; we all have them, but are we using them to the greatest advantage or are they lost in the parking lot of our life?

"The school of life is so tough because the tests come first and the lessons only afterward."