Well, when one door closes, another one opens! I couldn’t count how many times I’ve heard that phrase. And it isn’t a bad phrase, but I think it fostered some less than ideal thought patterns for how I viewed opportunities in life. Thinking about that phrase, I was feeling frustrated that, figuratively, I was just in some locked room of life, like these ever-trending escape rooms that keep cropping up. All the doors were locked, and I had to complete a series of faith puzzles, hope levers, and unlock a myriad of padlocks with a life code that I couldn’t solve. I had the misconception that God was just sitting there watching me in the room, waiting for me to “learn my lesson” before he would allow the door to be opened.
There’s a lot of wrong thinking about that view, primarily that I was putting the pressure on myself to “solve the life and faith puzzle” before God allowed me to move on to the next level. And also, that God has us in these locked rooms with a series of mysterious doors that open and close of seemingly their own accord or my doing all the right things.
But we’re not in some locked escape room of life, looking for clues and trying to solve all the right puzzles in the right order before God opens the door for us. We’re just on a path with God. No rooms. No doors. Our God, who is our Heavenly Father and loves us more than we can imagine, just wants to journey with us in intimate relationship. God’s Word is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path (Psalm 119:105) and a person’s heart plans his way but the Lord determines their steps (Proverbs 16:9) – He has our journey planned out for us, with waypoints and stop points and big destinations and small destinations along the way. We get to that destination when we get there.
Sometimes, we’ll see a destination coming up in the distance, and just assume it’s a place that we will go and stay for awhile, but God just walks us right past that destination and we keep on our journey. I think those destinations are what we see as closed doors. But they’re not closed doors. They’re just destinations that God never intended on taking you to in the first place. We need to stop thinking that a no, is a sudden ‘no’ and mystical ‘closed door.’ That ‘door’ that closed, was never really open. Or more accurately, that destination we saw in the distance was never going to be a ‘yes.’
If you’re not at a destination, or waypoint, or rest stop, then you are simply on the path with God. And just like He instructed the Israelites to repeat the words of God to their children and talk about them when they sat in their house and along the way as they walked down the road (Deuteronomy 6:7), God is doing the same with you. He’s not waiting for you to solve all the faith puzzles and pull all the right levers. He’s simply spending time with you, directing your steps, talking with you, teaching you, whispering secrets to your heart. And all the while He’s doing that, He’s preparing the destinations ahead of you. When the Lord your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would give you – a land with large and beautiful cities that you did not build, houses full of every good thing that you did not fill them with, cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant – and when you eat and are satisfied, be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt (Deuteronomy 6:10-12). God is setting up the destinations so that they will be absolutely perfect and ready for you. He wants you to be fully equipped when He gets you to the next destination. And He is doing the preparation for you, by no merit of your own, simply because He loves you and will honor His Word.
If you get a chance, I encourage you to read Deuteronomy, chapters 6-8, and read it through the eyes of God taking you on a path. I’ve been reading these few chapters nearly every day, and each time, I am overwhelmed with how God is so careful to prepare our path, and prepare us on along the way down that path. I pray God will begin to show you His divine presence with you as you see yourself on a path, and that you will not feel as though you are trapped in a room, just waiting for a door to open.
Until next time,
Just a girl pursuing her reflection in the mirror of God’s Word, and inviting you to do the same
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