Red Key, Blue Key
by Paul Lawrence
I had a bright idea that had surprising consequences the other month. The problem was that I had two door keys on my key ring that looked the same. One for my home and one for the office. I kept putting the wrong key into the wrong door and this got really frustrating. To solve the problem I went out and bought two little plastic covers for them so I could tell them apart. To make it a bit of fun I chose a red cover and a blue cover.
For a joke, or what seemed like a bright idea, I put the red one on the office door as red means danger and trouble (during each day I have to make some tricky decisions) and I put the blue cover on my home door as this had a meaning of peace and quiet for me.
And then it started to go wrong. Even though I had put the red cover on my office door key as a bit of joke for myself and to make it easy to remember, things started to go wobbly. A mindset came over me every time I reached for the red key for my office door that this was a place of danger and trouble. I had more problems in my office life than before, and it puzzled me. It suddenly dawned on me that I had given the enemy rights to my office life that I never wanted to, just by calling my office a place of danger and trouble as a joke. Peter talks about the enemy as a roaring lion looking for someone to devour, and, unwittingly, I had given the enemy an opportunity to attack me. ‘Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour’ (1 Peter 5:8).
The truth is the Lord has given me this office and this job and even though times might get tough He will guide me through. The burden is His to carry and not my own. I had, in effect, said that wasn’t the way I see my job or office, and that I expected to have problems all the time during my working day. After a few days I switched the key colours around and now have blue for my office and red for my home key. I haven’t made any statements on what the colours mean, but just see them now as a way of remembering which key fits which door. Things have returned to normal again. Some days are challenging, some relaxing, some have difficult decisions to be made and some are times to share a joke with fellow colleagues, but all are now free from pronouncements.
The goods news is that, if we have put things into our lives and uttered words or pronouncements over them, sometimes, as in my case, as a joke, we can say sorry to the Lord and break the power of the words in the name of Jesus, and declare and live by the truth.
Prayer: Thank You Lord for everything You have given me. Today, if there is something in my life that has given the enemy a foothold please would You show me so I can deal with it, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Paul Lawrence is the Centre Director at Ellel Grange, UK and is married to Anne, who is the Deputy Centre Director for the Grange. He has lived in Africa for over 20 years and China for 5 years. His passion is to see the Lord do bigger and greater things in peoples lives that they cannot do on their own, not just in healings but also in the fun things of life. His belief is that nothing is ever big enough and as a team we can achieve anything if the Lord is at the centre.
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