A 'Parable' from Today

The man knew it was time to go. His eldest daughter was pestering him. "Dad, come on. It’s time for my piano lessons." But he was busy.

"I’ll come when Mom’s ready," he shouted back, pushing another scoop of snow off the drive.

"She’s ready." He turned and, sure enough, his wife was stepping out the back door. He sighed and propped his shovel up against the basketball pole.

As he walked toward the family van, he shoved his hand deep into his right front pocket, the pocket that always held his keys. They weren’t there. He fished around. Flash drive. Chapstick. No keys. He pushed his left hand into the left pocket. A few coins. No keys.

"I don’t have my keys," he shouted as he jogged into the house. He glanced at the kitchen counter as he headed for the master bathroom. He was sure he’d dropped the keys on the counter top next to his sink. His pocket and that spot were the only places he left his key ring. Usually. Peeking around the door frame of the bathroom he saw a clear counter top. No keys. He ran into the bedroom and checked the desk top and the dresser top. Nothing.

Puzzled and running late, he walked briskly back to the van. "I’ll have to use your keys," he informed his wife as he sat behind the wheel. "I can’t find mine."

A short dig through her purse and the man’s wife proffered her set of keys. He took them, popped them in the ignition and, with a twist, the engine came to life. Backing out of the drive, the man began a quick mental run down of the places the keys could be. He’d come home late from a Bible study the night before. He remembered carrying the keys in his hand when he got out of the car. The keys and an armload of other stuff. His Bible, a notebook, a few odds and ends left behind by his younger daughters who were quick to head for bed. Pulling up at his wife’s workplace, the man was sure he’d find the keys somewhere near the door. He slipped her work keys off the car ring, handed them over and then drove back home.

Once in the back door again, the man began his search in earnest. He opened the notebook on the counter where he’d left it the night before. He looked all around the kitchen, scanning every square inch for his keys. He made a more thorough inspection of the dining room counter and pushed a few things around in the computer hutch. No keys.

He returned to his bathroom and the master bedroom. He opened drawers, lifted papers, threw back covers. Nothing.

It was nearing time for a second trip in the van. The younger girls needed to get to school and, with the blowing snow and frigid temperatures, they'd be asking for a lift. The man spotted his youngest standing ready in her winter coat, book bag strapped on.

"Would you help me look for my keys?" he asked. "Look around down stairs."

Always eager to please, the girl headed for the basement. The man continued his quest, poking around the living room and the remaining rooms upstairs. The guest room. The second bathroom. The youngest’s bedroom. When his middle daughter called from the dining room, "Dad, we need to go," he trotted to the garage, snatched up his wife’s keys again and made the short drive to school.

When he stopped the van and shut it down after this final trip, he decided to hunt in the car. Maybe he hadn’t brought the keys in the night before. Maybe that was a figment of his imagination. He glanced under his seat. He lifted up the console. He moved umbrellas and gum wrappers and sun shields around. He pushed his hand down into the cracks at the back of each seat. No keys.

Then he remembered that he’d gotten a call the night before from a Girl Scout leader who couldn’t lock the doors after her troop’s meeting. Maybe he had gone over to lock up and absent-mindedly left his keys on his office desk. Stranger things had happened before. He went to look, but couldn’t see in the window.

He returned to the house and did his own basement survey. He walked through the older girls’ bathroom. He snooped around near their beds. He even looked in the pockets of the pool table. None of these were logical places to search, but he’d run out of logical ideas. The entire time, the man prayed fervently to God, a habit he’d picked up from his mother as a child. "Help me find my keys. You know where they are."

The anniversary clock atop the computer hutch in the dining room chimed the hour. Hearing it, the man broke down and did the one thing he hated to do early in the morning. He picked up the phone and called the man who kept a spare key at home. When this friend answered and heard what was up, he laughed. More than a gentle chuckle too. They talked for a bit and then the key loser begged, "Please bring up your key as soon as you can." The conversation ended with that.

Where could those keys be? the man wondered as he waited. He thought through the past evening and the hour or so that morning before he discovered his loss. He had brought in groceries from the car. He looked in the refrigerator, opening every drawer and clearing off every shelf. No keys.

He’d tried looking through the window of his office earlier, but he hadn’t been able to see anything. A flashlight. He needed a flashlight. He found his new LED flashlight, its sleek brushed metal body begged to be used. He shoved the tube in his back pocket, shrugged into his coat and walked out the front door. The man with the extra keys had arrived. His black pickup sat in front of the church. The flashlight would not be necessary.

When the man walked through the front doors and turned the corner into his now opened office, he half-expected to see the lost key chain laying next to his computer keyboard. It was not there. He opened a drawer or two on his desk. Nothing. Bothered, but knowing he needed to get something done that day, he settled into his chair and began to pray. He had plenty of people to pray for, so he set his mind on heaven’s throne and began.

His mind wandered. Where were those keys? Maybe he’d put his keys in his coat pocket the night before and when he had paused to put on his gloves that morning, the key ring had been thrown out by the gloves. Unlikely, but likely ideas were in short supply, so he put his coat back on and returned home. Lacking a rake which had been suggested to him by the extra key holder as he walked out the church door, he took out a broom and slowly pushed the snow aside. Whisk. Whisk. Whisk. It was slow and tedious, but it had to be done.

About a half hour into the job, a friendly soul pulled up and offered the most needed words of encouragement. "You know you’re fighting a losing battle." The snow was coming down fast, covering the concrete almost as quickly as it was pushed away.

"I know," the man replied, "but I’ve lost my keys and think they may be somewhere out here."

"Oh, no," was the concerned response. And then, in a by-the-way fashion, the encourager said, "I have a prayer request," and laid out the minor – her words, not mine –medical procedure headed her way the following day.

"I’ll pray," he said. And he did. "I hope it goes well," he shouted as her vehicle pulled away, its window still partially opened. A word of thanks reached him on the breeze.

He continued sweeping, praying all the while. "If those keys are out here, Father, direct every stroke of this broom, every sweep of my eyes. I don’t want to miss them." It would be weeks before he’d see the ground again, he thought, and he’d have to get copies of everything – car door, car ignition, house, church front door and office door. The last would be a pain. Wal-Mart had tried twice to make a key that would work on that knob. Both failed.

The man finished the driveway. Nothing. Not even sweeping out a foot into the grass on either side dug up his treasure. The man stomped off his feet in the garage, dropped the broom by the back door and re-entered the house.

"Argh!" he shouted, his frustration pouring out. He dropped his coat to the floor and looked around again, half-heartedly. Walking from room to room. Sticking his nose in a few bags and crevices he had skipped before. Nothing.

Defeated he shoved his arms into coat sleeves once more. Right arm. Left arm. His eyes fell on a blue hood that had been removed from his middle daughter’s coat the night before. She didn’t like it and had left it between the front seats of the car. He’d carried it in. He reached down and snatched it up.

The jingle of keys brought tears to his eyes. Five keys on two rings. A Pepsi logo key fob. A grocery store loyalty card. His keys. Joy flooded his soul and he whispered two words to the heavens: "Thank you!"

There is greater sorrow in heaven over just one lost soul than the man experienced over his lost keys. And there is greater joy in paradise over one lost one who repents than the man had over five keys placed securely in his pocket once again.

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