I lost my checkbook last week. That may not seem like a big loss, as I hardly write checks anymore.

But what IS important to me is the record book it contains of my income and expenses. I use it almost daily to keep track of funds that flow in and out of my life.

Where could I have left it? I checked my bank balance online to see the last place I might have used it. Since most transactions were online, that didn’t help.

Then Friday morning, I had to pay some bills. Not knowing what else to do, I did "the next right thing" I knew to do. I reached into the very back of my bill drawer to find another pad of blank checks, a cover, and a new blank record book to start over.

Pulling out a few old covers, I flipped through them to find one I could use. And there it was! My missing checkbook!

Now I remembered! I had been looking for a routing number the week before for an account I rarely use. After finding the number, I must have swept up my current checkbook and put it at the back of the drawer with those old ones.

Here I had finally given up on all my efforts to find my lost checkbook. I had looked in my car, my daughter’s car, and all the places around the house I might have lost it, but to no avail.

It was only Friday morning when I didn’t know what else to do and finally did the next right thing I knew to do, that I found it!

My checks were safe. My record book was restored. And my heart felt a rush of peace.

I wondered…

How many times have I not known what to do and then stopped moving forward or stopped taking ANY steps of faith because of something I had lost, something I had never found, or something I had given up on?

And how many times might I have found EXACTLY what I was looking for if I would have simply surrendered and done the next right thing God was presenting to me to do… to move on, to move forward or to take that next step of faith?

I’m thankful I found my checkbook. And I’m thankful I have more peace.

But I’m also wondering if there’s still much more peace ahead if I apply this to other areas of my life: trusting God for tomorrow, and doing the next right thing He presents to me today.

Maybe that same peace lies ahead of you, too?