A few days ago, we started having trouble with the key to the deadbolt on our front door. My husband and I rarely use that key as we generally enter our house through our garage. However, we currently have someone staying with us and this is the door he uses. He has a friend who is a locksmith and would be more than happy to repair our lock and re-key it so that it would match the garage deadbolt as well so we would just need one key (we'd replaced that lock a couple of years ago). We also have a very good friend who is a locksmith but as our friend lives more than an hour away, we told him to go ahead and have his friend do the work.

The work was done and everything was fine until I got it into my head to make sure that my key worked in that lock. I slipped in my key and it wouldn't turn.

Needless to say, I was not very pleased with this situation. I wasn't locked out but when one inserts a key into the front door lock on their own home, one expects it to work. I'd seen our friend using his key to go in and out. What was wrong with mine?

When my husband got home, I asked him to try his key in the front door. I was babbling on about how it was not going to work when "click"!

"It seems to be working fine for me," my husband said. Hmm...

He told me to try again and this time, he was going to watch me. I inserted the gold key into the lock and tried to turn it. My husband started to laugh.

"You're using the wrong key. The lock got re-keyed to match the deadbolt on the garage door, remember? Try that key.

I looked down at my keyring and found that key. It was a big silver key. I slipped it into the lock and effortlessly locked the door before unlocking it again. There was nothing wrong with the lock. I had been using the wrong key.

We rush through life trying this key and that key but we discover that they simply do not work. We try to unlock chains we're bound by using keys we have fashioned ourselves or they have been fashioned by someone other than God. We try to solve problems we encounter in life in the same manner. We discover we can't unlock the chains, we can't unlock (or sometimes lock) the door. Uh-oh. We have a serious problem here.

That's when we must go to the Master Locksmith, Jesus Christ. No "lock" can keep Him in or keep Him out. He releases us from the chains that bind us, opens prison doors, secures our hearts and minds against the invasion of the enemy and opens up doors to places the enemy does not want us to go.

When we're trapped by a locked door or encounter an unlocked door that needs to be locked, are we using the wrong key?

Blessings!

K

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