CHAPTER 8

WHEN GOD’S STORY BECOMES YOURS…

THE RIGHT DOORS OPEN

THINK ABOUT IT!

There’s a great moment in the Lord of the Rings books where Sam talks about adventure stories. Everything seems to be going wrong for him and Frodo at that point. The plan has failed. Nothing is working. They can’t imagine how they will ever accomplish the mission.

Sam delivers a great speech about how in the middle of the great stories full of darkness and danger you can’t see any way the end could be happy. But still the heroes don’t turn back. They keep going. And by the end, all the darkness is remembered as only a passing shadow.

In our stories, the ones we live inside of God’s great story, we will come to moments like those, moments when we attempt great things and the way is blocked. We can’t go through the door that seemed to be the answer to all the hard questions. But we must keep going another way, and trust that the Storyteller knows where he’s taking us, that it’s just a passing shadow.

I CAME HOME THE OTHER DAY TO A HOUSE OF BLOCKED doors. Not just shut doors, closed doors, or locked doors. Blocked doors.

Blame them on Molly, our nine-year-old, ninety-pound golden retriever, who, on most fronts, is a great dog. When it comes to kids and company, Molly sets a tail-wagging standard. But when it comes to doors, Molly just doesn’t get it. Other dogs bark when they want out of the house; Molly scratches the door. She is the canine version of Freddy Krueger. Thanks to her, each of our doors has Molly marks.

We tried to teach her to bark, whine, or whistle; no luck. Molly thinks doors are meant to be clawed. So Denalyn came up with a solution: doggy doors. She installed Molly-sized openings on two of our doors, and to teach Molly to use them, Denalyn blocked every other exit. She stacked furniture five feet deep and twice as wide. Molly got the message. She wasn’t going out those doors.

And her feelings were hurt. I came home to find her with drooping ears and limp tail. She looked at the blocked door, then at us. “How could you do this to me?” her eyes pleaded. She walked from stack to stack. She didn’t understand what was going on.

Maybe you don’t either. You try one door after another, yet no one wants to be your friend. No university accepts your application. No doctor has a solution for your illness.

Obstacles pack your path. Road, barricaded. Doorway, padlocked. You, like Molly, walk from one blocked door to another. Do you know the frustration of a blocked door? If so, you have a friend in the apostle Paul.

Hannah, 17 — When applying to colleges this fall, I had my mind set on Texas A&M University. That had been my first choice and I waited four months for the acceptance letter. When it did arrive it wasn’t what I’d hoped; I was not accepted. I was pretty devastated, but realized that it might truly be a blessing. I finally realized that maybe God needs me somewhere else; the door was closed but another door has opened for me.

He, Silas, and Timothy were on their second missionary journey. On his first one Paul enjoyed success at every stop. “They began to report all things that God had done with them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27 NASB). God opened doors into Cyprus, Antioch, and Iconium. He opened the door of grace at the Jerusalem council and spurred spiritual growth in every city. “The churches were being strengthened in the faith, and were increasing in number daily” (Acts 16:5 NASB).

The missionaries felt the gusts at their backs, and then, all of a sudden, headwinds.

Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.

—ACTS 16:6–7

Paul set his sights on Asia. Yet no doors opened. So the three turned north into Bithynia but encountered more blocked doors. They jiggled the knobs and pressed against the entrances but no access. We aren’t told how or why God blocked the doors. Just that he did. He still does.

God owns the key to every door. He is “opening doors no one can lock, locking doors no one can open” (Revelation 3:7 MSG). Once God closes a door, no one can open it. Once God shut the door of Noah’s ark, only he could open it. Once he directed the soldiers to seal the tomb of Jesus, only he could open it. Once he blocks a door, we cannot open it. During a season of blocked doors, we, like Molly, can grow frustrated.

A few years ago, many of us at the church I pastor were convinced that our church needed a new sanctuary. We were bursting at the seams. Wouldn’t God want us to build a larger auditorium? We thought so. We prayed for forty days, sought counsel from other churches. We weighed our options and designed a new facility. Sensing no divine reservation, we began the campaign.

All of a sudden the wind turned. In less than six months, construction costs increased 70 percent! Gulp. Still, we continued. We reduced the scope of the project and challenged the congregation to ante up more money. Even with their astounding generosity, we didn’t raise enough money to build the sanctuary. I will never forget the weight I felt when I announced our decision not to build.

Didn’t we pray? Didn’t we seek God’s will? Why would God close the door? Might it have something to do with this — the worst recession since the Great Depression looming less than a year away? God was protecting us. Moreover, within three months I would be diagnosed with a heart condition. God was protecting us.

It was a classic God’s story/our story contrast. From our perspective we saw setbacks. God, however, saw an opportunity, an opportunity to keep us out of dangerous debt and bolster our leadership team with a new senior minister, Randy Frazee. A plan to protect us from a budget-busting mortgage and to grant us fresh leadership. God closed the wrong doors so he could lead us through the right one.

As God’s story becomes yours, closed doors take on a new meaning. You no longer see them as interruptions of your plan but as indications of God’s plan.

This is what Paul learned. God blocked his missionary team from going north, south, or east. Only west remained, so they ended up at Asia’s westernmost point. They stood with their toes in the sand and looked out over the sea. As they slept, “Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us’ “ (Acts 16:9).

The closed doors in Asia led to an open-armed invitation to Europe. “Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi” (Acts 16:11–12 NKJV). They ran a “straight course.” The wind was at their back. Blocked passages became full sails.

After several days Paul and his team went out of the city of Philippi to the riverside to attend a Jewish prayer service. While there, they met Lydia. “One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message” (Acts 16:14).

Read that verse too quickly, and you’ll miss this account of the first convert in the West. Christianity was born in the East, and here the seeds of grace rode the winds of sovereignty over the Aegean Sea, fell on Grecian soil, and bore fruit in Philippi. Christ had his first European disciple… and she was a she!

Is Lydia the reason the Holy Spirit blocked Paul’s path? Was God ready to highlight the value of his daughters? Perhaps. In a culture that enslaved and degraded women, God elevated them to salvation coheirs with men. Proof? The first person in the Western world to receive the Christian promise or host a Christian missionary was a female.

With her support Paul and his team got to work. Their efforts in Philippi were so effective that the pagan religious leaders were angered. They saw the people turning away from the temples and feared the loss of income. So they conjured up a story against Paul and Silas.

Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

—ACTS 16:22–24 NKJV

Listen closely. Do you hear it? The old, familiar sound of keys turning and locks clicking. This time the doors swung closed on the hinges of a prison. Paul and Silas could have groaned, “Oh no, not again. Not another locked door.”

But they didn’t complain. From the bowels of the prison emerged the most unexpected of sounds: praise and prayer. “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:25).

Their feet were in stocks, yet their minds were in heaven. How could they sing at a time like this? The doors were slammed shut. Their feet were clamped. Backs ribboned with wounds. From whence came their song? There is only one answer: they trusted God and aligned their story to his.

The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them.

—HOSEA 14:9

God will always give what is right to his people who cry to him night and day, and he will not be slow to answer them.

—LUKE 18:7 NCV

When God locks a door, it needs to be locked. When he blocks a path, it needs to be blocked. When he stuck Paul and Silas in prison, God had a plan for the prison jailer. As Paul and Silas sang, God shook the prison. “At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose” (Acts 16:26).

There God goes again, blasting open the most secure doors in town. When the jailer realized what had happened, he assumed all the prisoners had escaped. He drew his sword to take his life.

When Paul told him otherwise, the jailer brought the two missionaries out and asked, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). Paul told him to believe. He did, and he and all his family were baptized. The jailer washed their wounds, and Jesus washed his sins. God shut the door of the jail cell so that he could open the heart of the jailer.

God uses closed doors to advance his cause.

He closed the womb of a young Sarah so he could display his power to the elderly one.

He shut the palace door on Moses the prince so he could open shackles through Moses the liberator.

He marched Daniel out of Jerusalem so he could use Daniel in Babylon.

And Jesus. Yes, even Jesus knew the challenge of a blocked door. When he requested a path that bypassed the cross, God said no. He said no to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane so he could say yes to us at the gates of heaven.

God’s goal is people. He’ll stir up a storm to display his power. He’ll keep you out of Asia so you’ll speak to Lydia. He’ll place you in prison so you’ll talk to the jailer. He might even sideline a quarterback in the biggest game of the season. This happened in the 2010 BCS National Championship Game. Colt McCoy, the University of Texas quarterback, had enjoyed four years of open doors. He was the winningest signal caller in the history of collegiate football. But in the National Championship Game, the most important contest of his university career, a shoulder injury put him out of the game in the first quarter. “Slam” went the door. Colt spent most of the game in the locker room.

I don’t know if he, like Paul and Silas, was singing, but we know he was trusting. For after the game, he said these words:

I love this game…. I’ve done everything I can to contribute to my team…. It’s unfortunate I didn’t get to play. I would have given everything I had to be out there with my team. But… I always give God the glory. I never question why things happen the way they do. God is in control of my life. And I know that, if nothing else, I’m standing on the rock.25

Even on a bad night, Colt gave testimony to a good God. Did God close the door on the game so he could open the door of a heart?

Colt’s father would say so. A young football player approached Brad McCoy after he returned from the game and asked, “I heard what your son said after the game, but I have one question. What is the rock?” McCoy responded, “Well, son, we sing about him at church,” and began singing the hymn:

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

but wholly lean on Jesus Name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand,

All other ground is sinking sand;

All other ground is sinking sand.26

It’s not that our plans are bad but that God’s plans are better.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD.

“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so my ways are higher than your ways

and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

—ISAIAH 55:8–9 NLT

This is what I’m trying to teach Molly. Our family blocks doors so she can have better doors.

And this is what God is trying to teach us. Your blocked door doesn’t mean God doesn’t love you. Quite the opposite. It’s proof that he does.

Kayla, 15 — Oftentimes we as human beings don’t like being told no by our parents, friends, or coworkers, and we try everything in our possible state of mind to change their answers. Most likely their answer will still be no. But when God says no to us, we sometimes sit and wonder, Why? We hear that God is all-powerful and merciful. The Bible says ask and it shall be given. In our heads that sometimes translates to “God will give me anything I want as long as I say please,” but in life that isn’t true. Yes, God has the power to give you anything you desire, but within reason. There are some things that we want in life but don’t need, and God is there to help us decide between the two. Even when the door you want to walk through is blocked, the open door God will lead you to is closer than you think.

DON’T JUST SIT THERE…

Thank God that he sometimes writes the story of your life differently than you would have by blocking some doors. Ask him to help you to trust him when it’s a door you really wanted to go through.

Ask your parents about some of the things they wanted to do in their lives that they just could not make happen because it became impossible. How do they feel about those blocked doors now: regretful or grateful that they could not go that way?

Think about the last story you read or saw in a movie. Write down what the hero wanted to happen. Then write down what got in the way. On a scale of one to ten, write down a number representing how interesting the story would have been if everything had happened exactly as the hero wanted it without any conflict or struggle.

Ask a friend to tell you the story of their life. Listen for the blocked doors that help to determine which direction the story will take.

Ask a wise Christian you know to tell you how they go about making hard decisions in life. How do they try to figure out what is God’s will for their story?