When I went to get dressed this morning, I couldn’t find my pants. So, I did what we most like were all taught to do: think. Where was the last time you had your ______? That tactic usually works… except with my pants, I was pretty sure I knew where my pants were, because, hey, I don’t normally take my pants off until I get into the privacy of my own room. It’s a thing.

So then I had to ask myself the question: Is there any other place I could have taken my pants off? I have to say I couldn’t think of ANYWHERE I could have… & then I was sad. REALLY sad. Those were my pants, the pants that I liked, the pants that fit me. It is hard to find pants that fit, & those really did.

My sadness flowed into a low-grade melancholy as I searched around the closet for something else to wear… I’d had my heart set on my pants, & now they were gone, who knows where. I sighed. And remembered…

I went to the gym last night after work, & I hadn’t had time to change into my gym clothes before I left work (normally I change before I leave work. It’s a thing. But I digress). Maybe I left my pants in the locker at the gym. With no lock on the locker. NOTE: I know it’s probably not a good thing to rely solely on a presumed Mens’ Locker room etiquette or code that no one would touch my pants (& my black Under Armour polo!), but its been working for me so far.

However, I’d never stretched the limits of this “Mens’ Locker Room Code” overnight. So hoping beyond hope, I called the gym & asked if someone would check to see if my pants were still in the locker I used; left the guessed locker number, my name & number & waited for a call back. Figured it would take about 5 minutes or so. I waited 10 & decided to go check the locker room myself.

Arrived at the gym 10 minutes later, identified myself as the caller who may have left his pants overnight in a locker. The girl at the front desk said, “My manager was just in there & couldn’t find anything.” Wonderful. But I wouldn’t believe it until I checked.

Over the years, I have learned that when something doesn’t belong to someone, they aren’t nearly as diligent in looking for lost things as is the individual who lost it. Those were my pants, & if they were in the locker room, I would find them. I went to the locker number I had guessed & BOOM! There were my pants, still hanging majestically on the hook where I’d left them the night before.

A flood of joy WAY too big for the occasion poured over me. I was giddy. Laughed out loud & danced a little jig. The melancholy was gone as quickly as it had come, & a joy replaced it. I walked from the locker room, pants held high all the way out the front door. The girl at the front desk clapped for me & cheered, “Yay!” (Evidently she values pants nearly as much as I do.) The manager who “looked” for my pants didn’t meet my victorious gaze as I walked to my car. This was going to be a good day.

I sat down in my car getting ready to head to work & I heard God say, “You know how happy you are because you found your pants? Think how happy I get when a person who’s lost turns back to Me.” Made me cry happy tears. Not for my pants, but for a God who could use something as trivial as my pants to remind me how valuable each one of us is to Him.

“Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.” Luke 15:7, The Message

For more on what God thinks about people turning to Him, check out Luke 15.