Doors

Thanks to the kindness of a sweet little friend who wanted to "pass down" his car to Ethan, we now have a little car to drive. Ethan LOVES to drive (heaven help us when he turns 16) and zoom around the backyard. The odd thing about the car is that it only has a door on the driver's side. The passenger side "door" doesn't open.

This is very perplexing for my child. He wants to know the mechanics of everything, and the fact that his car has a door that doesn't open just doesn't set well with him. It's going to take him awhile to get over it...

Doors have been on my mind for awhile, too. Over the last few months, we have had a lot of decisions to make (obviously). There has been one particular decision for me that I have felt God's leading in a certain direction, but suddenly, the door closed. Honestly, I was disappointed and disheartened.....so I did what any other determined person would do and asked God to just double-check Himself for me with another "fleece".

The door closed again.

What has bothered me about these events is that I thought I was following God's leading. I could go back to certain points over the last few months with assurance that He was speaking a "yes" at each point. Yet, in the end, He closed the door....with a divine bang, I might add.

There are two stories in the New Testament about doors opening and closing that have come to my mind recently.

In Acts 12, Peter was heavily guarded in prison and awaiting trial. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and led him out of the prison, passing through two levels of security guards. When they came to the iron gate, it opened for them BY ITSELF, and they easily stepped through it.

In Acts 16, Paul and Silas were in prison and a violent earthquake came and shook all of the prison doors open. But Paul and Silas stayed put. Even though the doors opened, they didn't go through them.

Wait. What?!? So God opened a door, but they weren't supposed to go through it? How many times have you heard someone say, "Well, we will just pray that God will open the door, if He intends for us to do such-and-such."

Hmmmmm.

So, how do we know when to walk through the open door? I think that it depends on your mission field - what God has called you to do as an individual. In Acts 12, Peter went through the door because he his mission field was outside of the prison. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas' mission field was to one specific guard and his family at the prison. In both cases, people were actively praying at the time that the doors opened - and they never hesitated to know whether to walk through or not.

So next time a door opens, consider asking yourself, "Is this door going towards what God has called me to do?"