We’ve all heard the colloquialism that says,
“When one door closes, another one opens.”
Or
“When Gods shuts a door he opens a window”
These are cute sayings and I understand the purpose, but they are not necessarily true.
There have been several seasons in my Life where one door shut, and I stood in the hallway wondering, “What now?”
I see what people are trying to say. They’re attempting to take a negative and turn it into a positive. To say this door may be shut to you, but another one is just around the corner. In other words, it’s going to be ok. I get it, and the thought of that can be encouraging or, at the very least, give us hope. However, there are some negative consequences to this type of thinking.
1. When one door shuts, it seems to close suddenly and without reason.
Like there was no cause and effect, it doesn’t allow a person to evaluate or reflect on why the door may have shut. If there is no contemplation over this, then we fail to learn some valuable information.
We don’t ask the questions like,
1. Why did the door shut?
2. How did I get to this place, standing in the hall with nowhere to be?
3. Was I in some way responsible for the door shutting?
4. Could I have kept the door from shutting?
5. Was this door of opportunity right or wrong for me?
6. Is it good that this door shut?
7. Is it wrong that this door shut?
8. Are there good and evil’s in shutting this door?
9. What are they?
10. How can I use them to learn to succeed in the next opportunity?
Do you see what I’m saying?
If the door just shut, if there was no reason why, then we are without an opportunity to learn. This is what I call living in limbo. It’s this idea that My Life is not up to me, and whatever happens will happen, and I have no choice. There is no reason to be intentional because Life happens.
While some things in Life “just happen,” most things can be led, developed, and intentional. If we learn that we can take Life and choose to live it on purpose for purpose, then it means something.
2. If this door shutting on me means another one will open to me, then again, I have nothing to do with it.
Life is just one big, long hallway; we are moving through it, hoping doors open.
It’s incredible how many people I see living like this. They experience a rejection and then sit and wait to see if another door of opportunity will open. They’re not going to dare put themselves out there again. They don’t want another door slammed in their face. They will sit in the hallway and hope that another door will open since one door is closed.
I see this a lot with Christians. Because I am one, I want to speak to this for a minute. I understand that we want to do the will of God. I know that we don’t want to move without Him. However, look through the Bible and ask yourself a question. How many people whom God used to do great things sat around and waited for a door to open? Don’t you see most of them walking up to the doors and knocking? Don’t you notice most of them believing, setting their faith, but realizing God moves often when we move? He backs our play when we make an actual faith investment when we take a step of action on purpose.
Thinking with this fate-like mindset leaves us with nothing we can do except sit there and wait and hope that Life turns out, that someone will give us another chance, and that by some miracle, our answer will come because we are not moving until it does.
What I have found to be more accurate is that when one door closes, you must get your tools out and frame another door—most of the time, you must build it.
When your purpose requires a door to open for you, you may have to build it yourself.
Jonathan, the son of Saul, fought the Philistines with just his armor-bearer because he said, let’s fight, and perhaps God will be with us. Saul and 600 men sat under a tree, waiting for God to tell them what to do. Jonathan knew the overarching purpose was to defeat the enemy; there was no reason to delay. Let’s get to it. He and his faithful friend went up that hill and over, and God showed up, and they won the victory. Saul was sitting under the tree, waiting for a door to open, while Jonathan built his door and won the battle.
The Bible is replete with people who understood faith, purpose, and living with intention. This idea that another door will open, however enlightening it might be, is not reality, and because it’s not, it will not allow you to know what needs to be done clearly.
However, if we can be honest about why the door was shut in the first place and learn from that, whether it was our fault or not, then as we stand in the hallway of Life, we can decide to act. Either go to another door and politely knock, or yet another door and bust through it, or maybe even grab our tools and frame in an entry of our own and seize the opportunities available.
So when one door shuts and another doesn’t open, please don’t stand in the hallway bemoaning it. Go to work and build your entry. Then, walk through it and win.
You might ask, how? Here are just a few thoughts.
-
Ask yourself, “What do I want?” (Not fantasy, not playing around, what do you want for your Life?) Let me say it this way. If you only had five years to live, you weren’t sick and would have your full capacities, but you knew in precisely five years you would die suddenly; what would you do with your Life?
-
Do you love what you do now? If not, why are you still doing it?
-
Be honest about where you are and its distance from where you want to be.
-
Develop a strategy to get you from here to there by small, daily, consistent action.
“Success is the sum of small efforts—repeated day in and day out.”
— Robert Collier
