A post on perseverance

"Maybe this is God closing a door."  Do you know how many times I have heard that recently?  Too many.  Yes, we are embarking on making a big life decision soon.  Where will we live next year?  What will we do?

I don't know {yet}.  We don't know {yet}.

I am sure next year at this time we will know what God planned for us (because you know, by that point in time, we will be living it).

I do know this:
We don't serve a manipulative God.  We have a compassionate, wise, sovereign, holy, just, awesome God.  And he does not take us places he is not.  And he is good.  And he is faithful.

He does not crack open a door, let his glorious light shine through, and then as we start to walk towards it slam it close in our face.

I think God is teaching me that the door is open.  You can call it a window, a door, a hole through the wall, whatever you want :)  The door may be far away.  It might be a rough and hilly path to it.  But He is leading.  And my job is to follow.

The best part about the door being far away is that we get to learn perseverance along the way.  And patience.  And we get to grow our trust in the Compassionate, Wise, Sovereign, Holy, Just, Good, Awesome, Faithful One.

Just think: what if Peter and John thought the "door" was closed after fishing all night and not catching anything?  What if they never threw their nets in one more time?

What if Joseph thought the "marriage" door was closed because his fiancee got pregnant?

What if Paul thought the "missionary" door was closed because he was beaten, rejected, stoned, imprisoned?

What is Abram and Sari thought the "child" door was closed because they were old and barren?

My simple answer is this: God's glory {for that circumstance} would not have been revealed to us.

Yes, I know, friends.  I am young.  I have had an easy life, you may say.  Wait 50 years and see what I say.  Maybe then my open or closed door thoughts may change.  We are told in 1 John 4:1 to "not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world."  Just because an opportunity arises does not mean that it is from God.  We get to use our minds and hearts to discern (emphasis on the discern).

But at the end of the day (or at least today), I am still going to say that God did not close a door.  I just saw what I thought was an open one and God refined my ability to discern.

God is good.