Open or Closed Doors?

Anyone who has walked with the Lord for any length of time knows that things are not always easy and comfortable. There are seasons in our lives where it seems everything has gone wrong. We try to comfort ourselves as much as we can in the fact that Job, Abraham, David, Paul, even Jesus experienced difficult times, and yet this was the Lords will for them to go through this time and come out with a tested and purified faith. However, in my own life and in the lives of other believers who I have know, often I hear the phrase, "I thought this is the way the Lord wanted me to go, but now it seems difficult / road blocked / uncomfortable / closed door..."

Now I admit, when it is myself in these situations I come to the same conclusion initially. I see these difficult times and see it as a path I don't want to go down... and I say, "looks like the Lord closed this door". When in fact, how is it I can jump to such a conclusion when I know that all those others in the Bible who went through tough times and it was the Lord who called them to go through it.

This notion of open and closed doors... I think it is a misused concept.

To be sure, the Lord will direct us. And the few verses where this idea of closed doors is spoken of (and a whole theology and misunderstanding has been drawn from) do not say anything about the fact that some doors the Lord opens and asks us to walk through will not be comfortable or inviting doors.

take a look at the passage that most directly states this concept of the Lord opening a door...
Colossians 4:3
"And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains."

Note that Paul is not asking them to pray that God will make the way open by making it easy. Notice that he even says he is in chains as a result of proclaiming the mystery of Christ. We might like to read it that he is asking them to pray for an easier way, but he really says no such thing.

There are a multitude of other passages and people in the Bible which might be used as examples where the hallway of doors before them seems to demonstrate the concept that God will 'clear the way' by opening paths to us and closing other paths. But if you really take the time to examine them, the open doors given to these people are not always comfortable or easy ones.

Sometimes God opens a door and it is a dark passage and looks creepy. We take a look at it and think this must really be a closed door because it is so foreboding. We look around and see another door lit by a quaint porch light with the sound of laughter and joy behind it. The door is actually closed, but we go to it and knock because it seems so much easier and more inviting. "This must be the way the Lord wishes us to go. not down that dark tunnel."

All the while we ignore the fact that the OPEN door is frightening and the CLOSED one is inviting.

When Paul was told by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem but was later 'warned' by the prophet Agabus (Acts 21) that he would be bound and taken captive if he went... I don't think Agabus' message was a warning to Paul that he should not go to Jerusalem (He had just been told by the Spirit to go), but it was rather to prepare Paul for what he would now have to go through. The Lord was asking Paul to walk through a door that would lead to his imprisonment and eventually his death. But on the way, Paul would get a chance to speak to many people about Jesus, and would have the opportunity to fulfill what Paul wished for: "...that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains."

Walking out my Christianity in the place I am now... in a small group of believers who often don't see things as I do, in a setting that is not as comfortable and controlled as a typical religious organization (which most people call a "church"), I find I am called to walk through doors that I want to fool myself into believing are closed... but are in fact open. The Spirit has not changed His mind about the path I am traveling (which He set me on) he is just reminding me and preparing me (like he did for Paul through Agabus) for what lies down the path of this open door.