“If You Will Worship me . . .”

This is a story about hearing the voice of God and the voice of satan, who tried to use loss to induce me to worship him.

For a short time I lost a key to my truck and my wallet. The Scripture that best described my state of mind when I lost the spare key to my truck and the next day lost my wallet, comes from Luke 15 — the woman who lost a silver coin.

“Suppose a woman has ten silver coins, and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, “Rejoice with me, I have found my lost coin. In the same way, I tell you there is rejoicing in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15: 8 — 10 NIV translation).

Do you get the impression she was frantic? It was at night she realized her coin was missing. She lit all the lamps and began to methodically sweep the floor until she found her coin. A lot was at stake for her, even though in the world’s eyes, that coin was of little significance. That is Jesus’ point with this parable. No one is insignificant to God — everyone, even one sinner who has rejected God and placed himself on the throne of his life, has value to God.

But back to my losses. On Wednesday, January 18, 2023 my wife and her girlfriend left our home at 6:00 AM to drive to Washington D.C. to participate in the annual March for Life. Sometime the next day a random thought came into my mind: “Where is the spare key for the new truck I bought a few weeks ago?” I have no idea why I thought that, I just did. I went to the drawer near the door from our garage to our kitchen where I always put my keys and wallet as soon as I walk into the house, and the key was not there. “That’s strange,” I thought, “I always put them there.” So began a multi-hour search through the house. No key. I called my wife, “Have you seen the key?” “I thought you put it in the drawer,” she said.

Of course, I prayed, “Jesus, I know this is a small request, but you told me “to ask,” so I am asking, “Lord, where is my key? Can you show me?”

I went to the dealership where I bought the truck. “Did I leave a key with you by accident?” No key. I went to a barn we own about 25 minutes south of town. No key.

It was really not that big of a deal. It was a spare key, but I was in the grip of a kind of passion that was out of proportion to what was lost — it was like I was possessed with anxiety and fear. I was frantic.

I came home from the barn, got cleaned up and went to a meeting at a local church for a fast that my wife and I were doing. I left the meeting a few minutes early, and as I walked to my car I asked God again, “Lord, would you show me where I put or lost the key?” I heard Him say, “I’ll show you.” I got home, looked around again in the same places for the 10th time, including my key drawer — no key. Tired and a little discouraged, I went to bed.

I woke up early to pray. While I was praying, the ‘thought’ came fully formed — “look in the key drawer. AGAIN.” I did, and there was the key! But it wasn’t what I was expecting to see. I was looking for a black key fob about 3 inches long — very obvious. Instead, it was wrapped in a plastic bag covered with white letters. Not exactly hidden, but not in plain sight either. I looked in the drawer and I heard God say, “Look closely” and my eyes fell on that bag. I had looked in that drawer over and over again, at least 10 times. It was there the whole time, just not in the form I was looking for. I thanked God for answering my prayer.

God answers prayers with results. Even prayers for keys.

That is not the end of the story. It is really the context for what happened next.

I found the key early Friday morning. After more prayer, including thanking God, I went back to bed for a few hours. I had a busy day. At 9:15 AM I had a phone call with a pastor in Houston. We have been meeting weekly for over 10 years. At 10:30 AM I had a zoom call with a group of women in Houston I am teaching about healing and deliverance prayer. At noon my friend Robert came over for lunch. We ate and talked about the Holy Spirit, healing, and deliverance. At 2:00 PM I went out for a walk in my neighborhood. And then at 4:00 PM I went next door and ate with my neighbors, who knew my wife was still out of town. After a good dinner/lunch, I came home intending to gather my keys and wallet and head out to the grocery store to buy some berries for my fast.

I got my coat on, opened the drawer where I keep my keys and wallet, including the newly discovered spare key, — No Wallet!! What? Not again! (I am thinking, “spiritual attack”) I ALWAYS put my wallet there. But it was gone — not there. The same spirit of franticness kicked in, this time worse. Losing a spare key is one thing, but losing my wallet with credit cards, driver’s license (which is my I.D.) plus insurance and medical cards, is a bigger problem.

I went into ‘woman who lost her coin’ mode. I looked all over the house. Nothing. I drove to the barn again (it was dark by then) and looked all over in the pasture, the barn, across the river (it is shallow) where I had parked in the woods the day before; looked back home, again; in the truck multiple times, through the house one more time. Nothing. No wallet. By now it was 8:30 at night.

Then I remembered the church dinner the night before. I called the pastor, who is the neighbor I ate dinner with 4 hours ago, and told him my story. He called the cleaning woman who cleaned up after the event. He called back and told me she hadn’t seen the wallet. Then he prayed with me for the wallet to turn up. I even drove to the church where the event was to walk across the parking lot to see if the wallet had fallen out of my pocket.

You get the picture. I retraced my steps from Thursday afternoon when I last knew I had the wallet to just before dinner with my neighbors on Friday afternoon. No wallet.

Of couse, I kept asking God to show me where the wallet was.

Friday evening I texted my wife in D.C., “I found the key. Now I have lost my wallet”. I was beginning to wonder what was going on with my mind. She told me to, “Calm down”. And then she and her friend prayed for me, and for Jesus to show me where the wallet was.

I did calm down. I sent an email to 7 guys I pray with or meet with regularly asking for their prayers. Then I sat in my chair in the living room and ‘rested’ for a few minutes. It was then that I heard ‘the voice’. Not an audible voice outside my head. In my mind — but clear nonetheless.

“If you will worship me, I will show you your wallet”. The voice was obviously the devil. I can’t tell exactly how I knew that, but I did. The voice was slimy, oily, insincere, and seductive.

It took me a second to identify the voice. I immediately said, “I will never worship you. I don’t care what I have lost. You will never get my worship. I belong to Jesus. He will find my wallet. And even if He doesn’t, He will always be my Lord. I don’t need you. I don’t want you. Get out.” Then I called upon the Holy Spirit to protect me from the defiling presence of my enemy.

A peace came upon me. I felt safe, secure, like I was being held by Jesus, which I guess I might have been. All the anxiety and franticness was gone.

Then I heard another voice, again in my mind — it was the Holy Spirit. He said, “Go into the kitchen”. I got up and went into the kitchen. He said, “open that drawer” (a different drawer from the one I always use). “Why?”, I asked. “I would never put my wallet in that drawer.” It is where we put twisty-ties, rubber bands, and plastic plates and bowls from Ikea. But I obeyed. And, of course, there was my wallet. I must have put it in there, but when and why I still don’t know.

Jesus answers prayers, even the ones that seem small to us. He cares about the smallest things in my life — He wants to be involved in every detail, nothing is too small for Him.

Satan used my sense of loss, fear, and anxiety — those emotions opened a door into my heart — to try to draw me away from Jesus. My loss was minimal in the world’s eyes, but big for me. Satan used that open door.

These two small, temporary losses in my life got me thinking about the mystery of loss in general.

What about a person who loses something seriously big like a job, a loved one, their home and possessions in a fire, flood, or war; their money through theft, a stock market crash, or government corruption; or their health? If I was vulnerable with such small losses, what about Christian brothers and sisters who suffer real, permanent loss? How susceptible are they to saying, “Jesus, you didn’t help me. Where were you?” And turn away from Him. Or, in their loss hearing satan’s offer, “If you will worship me, I can return to you what you lost,” and find themselves accepting the devil’s help. Of course, the devil never gives something for nothing. You give him your worship, he gives you death. Not a good deal.

Or what if their response to loss is permanent, life-long grief and mourning? This too will draw the believer into the arms of satan and away from Jesus.

We will all face losses — big and little. The magnitude of the loss is not the important thing. How you react or respond to the loss is the issue. My Mom died in September. For most people that would be a big loss. I was more affected by the loss of my wallet than I was by the loss of my Mom — she was a Christian, 98 years old, bedridden for 2 years, and her mind was failing. Jesus took her to heaven — it was a blessing. I rejoiced when my Mom died.

That is easy for me to understand. What about the loss of a child to leukemia? That is a totally different level of loss. How do we deal with that? I don’t know. But I have a thought:

Jesus restored my keys to me in days. He restored my wallet to me in hours. He is good; He is our restorer. For those who follow Jesus, who trust HIm, He will restore what we lose.

“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, and the chewing locust . . . You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God who has dealt wondrously with you” (Joel 2: 25 NKJV).

But sometimes He will restore what we lose in years or decades or generations. He is outside of our time/space framework. I lost my Mom. But our life together will be restored. A man I met recently lost his daughter to cancer when she was in her twenties. But he will be reunited with his daughter. Not in days or weeks, but in decades. He will see her again. She will be ‘found’. This is mysterious, it is outside our ‘comfort zone’, but for the believer it is true.

“Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him” (1 Thessalonians 4: 13, 14 NIV translation).

As born-again Christians, we have hope — hope that what we lose will be restored. If not in this life, then in the next — which is real life. Jesus will right every wrong; He will heal every broken heart. There will come a time when “There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain” (Revelation 21: 4 NIV translation). That time will come for those who believe, trust, and follow Jesus.

It is by faith that we put our hope in Christ — Jesus restores. By faith, we bring our loss to Jesus. By faith we trust that He is a good, loving, all powerful, and all knowing heavenly Father who tenderly cares for us. It is by faith that we believe in restoration, even if it takes a lifetime. That is our hope in Christ.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11: 1 NIV translation).

“But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8: 23, 25 NIV translation).

One of the greatest gifts we can give Jesus is the sorrow and pain we feel when we lose something that we know will not be given back in this life. When we do, He will not abandon us. He will comfort us and bring us a peace that passes understanding. We give Him our pain, He gives us His hope.

When we face signifiant loss, we all have a choice to make. We are at a fork in the road of our life — will we turn right, deeper into the arms of Jesus, our Lord and Savior? Or will we turn left, away from Him into the arms of satan, who seems to offer us comfort, but really can give us only death. That fork demands a choice. If you don’t turn right, you have chosen left. We must choose.

As Moses told the Israelites, “I set before you life and death. Blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life” (Deuteronmy 36: 19, 20 NIV translation).

That is Kingdom wisdom — it is the highway to holiness, becoming like Jesus so you can weather any storm with His hope, joy, peace, and power.

Be blessed,

John