Closed Doors, Closed Windows…Limitless God

Someone once said, “When God closes a door, He opens a window.” I’ve had that short phrase lodged in my brain for years, as it was also the main line of a popular song on the radio. But, now that I’m getting a little older, I’m not so sure. Borrowing from Is. 53 “For My ways are higher than your ways…and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts,” says the Lord…I’m coming to understand, “My doors are better than your doors, and my windows are higher than your windows…”

My son borrowed and misplaced my key ring the other day, just after I had taken my car key off of it as I went running. For 3 days we looked and looked to no avail. Yesterday I got in the car, and somehow my key dropped and slid in the small rubber opening between the two front seats where you pull up the emergency brake. If I were a betting man I think the odds of it landing there was about one million to one. The sound of it landing on the bottom of what seemed like an abysmal pit reminded me of when I dropped my phone onto a subway track last year just before trying to catch my plane. Kinda funny…but not really.

The key was impossible to reach without removing the entire console, so I decided to call a ride to take me home to get a spare. They arrived, I slammed the door ready to head home, and then realized I had no house keys, only the garage door opener which I had just locked in the car when I slammed the door. Doors literally were closing everywhere. Sound familiar?

Okay, I thought, I’ll just break into my own house. I figured I could get a ladder and climb into a second floor window…or something. I got home and realized I had also locked the ladder up under the house and didn’t have that key either. This is the day that the Lord has made?

I’ll end the story there and tell you it did end well. I got a spare, got my car, and headed back home…finally. However, I was reminded that doors are sometimes closed. Locked. Shut. Windows that should be another option are sometimes too high. Out of reach inaccessible.

Maybe it’s a door to a new job, a relationship, a new season in life. Or perhaps the healing you waited for, the family you wanted, or the freedom you longed for. Well…I don’t know. My answers fall short. My questions increase. But what I do know is that God is still God, and He will always be. He’s not limited to doors and windows, or time or space for that matter. He’s worthy of trust, responds to gratitude, and unfailingly good.

In fact, I’ve probably grown more from the desperation of closed doors and locked windows than anything else. The “sign from God” I’ve often begged for has often come in the form of shut doors, no doubt protecting me from harm and preparing me for better. If you trust in Jesus, He is the one who opens and closes doors in your life: “What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.” (Revelation 2:7b NIV).

There’s no place like HOPE,

Stefan