"Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers"?

The quiet surrounding as this "time away" nears an end is redemptive in more ways than one. While it is comforting to be thus un-engaged, it is also shaping, requiring one to face things in oneself that one pays little attention to when busy with other things.

On waking early this morning the familiar saying quoted above came to mind. Why, after the quote, the question mark? Because I wonder if is really true. In one sense it is, of course, as any child finding a penny on the sidewalk knows. When I was a boy, you didn't ask questions about whose it really was. You just rejoiced in the penny candy it would provide for you.

But a boy is a boy is a boy. And now that I am older I realize how tempting it is to be thus self-occupied, as if life consists in providing for us, even at the expense of others. More often than not, when you hear "Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers" used, the tone in the users voice is pretty revealing.

I wonder how God feels about my own spirit this morning. Of his love I have no doubt. Yet I confess to a certain pain I feel in having less of his mind than I ought by now to have. And without detailing that all out, I am certain that God is speaking to me this morning about it.

I feel broken and contrite, with far more to condemn in me than commend. Yet having in the stillness to admit that I am also being healed. How can it be? Well, Scripture reminds me that "a bruised reed he will not break," and one of our hymnwriters adds, "Ne'er a sin but he'll forgive it, nor a sorrow he cannot heal."

God has a way as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of confronting us--upsetting our prideful towers and neat little apple carts, if only to bring us back again to ground zero in him. And that is good, for therein--and only therein--lies also his forgiveness and healing, even empowering. Could it be that the self-serving common wisdom of "Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers" also needs to be turned on its end?

I'm finding it so this morning, that losers like me, when they confess and admit it, are the keepers in God's sight. It's the self-absorbed finders, less in touch with their need of him or others, that are the real losers.

Lord, have mercy! Christ, have mercy!