Celebrate The Little Victories

Psalm 60:12, “With God we will gain the victory, and he will trample down our enemies.”

My friend Julie called me the other day to tell me this story. I thought it might inspire you as much as it inspired me!

Julie and her husband were frantic because they had lost the only key to their car. To make matters worse, the car was borrowed! As they searched and prayed over the course of several days, they began to lose hope that the key would ever be found. They even made the difficult call to the owner of the car to let him know that they had lost the only key. One morning as she was getting ready to take her girls to school (they had to walk, as they didn’t have the key to the car), she remembered just as they were walking out the door that they hadn’t recited their verse for the day.

“Pick a verse, girls,” she told her twin five-year-old daughters.

“T” one screamed out.

“Okay, ‘T’ it is!” she replied and read the verse they had chosen, which was I Corinthians 15:57: “Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Just as she recited the word “victory” with her daughters she slipped her hand into her jacket pocket. Before they finished reciting the verse, she held up the key they had searched high and low for. Victory! Finding a key might sound like a little victory, but to this family, it was a huge one. God had answered their prayers, and led them to the key. Her delighted daughters asked, “Is this a victory like the verse says?”

“You better believe it!” she told them. “Sometimes Jesus gives us victory over illness, sometimes over hard situations in life, and sometimes He helps us find things we’ve lost. They are all victories!”

As I thought about this story, I realized that we are all searching for the key to one thing or another. The key to happiness, or success, or love. The key to acceptance, or health, or wisdom. We search in vain, and sometimes we lose hope—forgetting the One who can surely give us victory and lead us to the key. Many times it is found in the most unlikely place, where we least expect it. Most times, I have found, it was right under our nose the whole time. Julie’s story inspired me to keep the truth contained in I Corinthians 15:57 at the forefront of my mind at all times. With Jesus on my side, how can I not experience victory, freedom, hope and joy? I want to find the key to whatever I am searching for. And through God’s word, I know just where to find it.