Last Saturday, our soccer team had to come to school by 7:30 am to drive an hour for an early morning game. Before we left, the coach asked some of the players to get water from the trainers office. I walked in and tried to open the door to the office. It was locked. So I walked past it deciding to aimlessly wander. As I walked past the trainers door the coach said,
“the doors right here.”
“It’s locked.” I said
He just looked at me strangely and said, “Well good thing the coach has got the keys.”
Then he unlocked it, and I followed him through the door feeling like an idiot. Once we got back on the bus, I couldn’t stop thinking of what had just happened in the school. I felt so dumb and I wondered why, when the coach had asked me to do something, and when I saw he was right next to me, I didn’t automatically assume he would unlock the door, making sure I could do what he had asked of me.
Then I started thinking, sometimes I treat God like that. He asks me to do something or presents an opportunity for me, and I try, by myself, to do what He wants me to do. Or I try to make the opportunity happen for me, and then, when it doesn’t work, when the door is locked, I give up. I assume that I didn’t hear Him right, or that the opportunity is just too hard to obtain. But in the process, I forget the most important thing of all. He holds the keys. He puts something on my heart that He wants me to do, and He is willing and able to help me accomplish it. In fact, He wants me to rely on Him. He does not want me to try to act on my own strength. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
But in my forgetfulness, I don’t ask him to unlock the doors He’s directed me to. I rely on myself to try to make things happen. Then I fail, and feel unsure of what God wants of me. When the whole time, He just wants me to ask Him to unlock the doors He’s told me to go through. He wants me to trust in Him with all my heart, that He will provide the way for me to do His will, but all too often I lean on my own understanding and on my own strength.
When you know God is leading you to a new opportunity, when He is asking you to go through another door, pursue His will with all you have. But in doing so, remember the most important thing… God holds the keys. And those doors that seem impossible to open, God’s got those keys too. As God directs your paths, and leads you up to many unknown doors, may you remember that the one who holds all the keys is right there with you, waiting for you to ask Him to unlock the doors.
~Corey
