I’ve always thought the idea that “God opens doors of opportunity for us” was only ever half-taught.
Of course God opens doors for us: He is our Shepherd and we are His sheep; naturally He will herd us to green grass and still waters. But the thing about sheep is…sheep are dumb.
Like, super dumb, yall.
The grass may be great where the Shepherd wants us to go but we’re sometimes dumb enough to wander to the brown, dead grass a little bit away. That means the Shepherd has to wander over, leaving the ninety-nine to go get that one, particularly stubborn–dumb–sheep and bring him to what’s good for him.
God opens doors for us, but because we’re not perfect and because we’re sometimes blinded by fear, worldliness, ease, or cares, we sometimes miss the obvious and fail to step through the door. It happens. But don’t sweat it: There will be other doors.
Do you think God opens one door of opportunity and then says “here’s your one chance (fancy)!” No. If we could do everything right the first time we wouldn’t need God, would we? So He opens the door and like dumb sheep we skip right by it. So He–our patient Father–opens another one, a little different, maybe, but ending in the same place. And we…probably will skip right by it too, blissfully ignorant of the opportunity we missed.
What does God do? He opens another, and another, all a little different, all tweaked based on circumstances and where we are in life, but all leading to the same place where God wants us to go. Until finally we step in, and we say to ourselves, like the silly sheep we are: “Oh wow this is great; I wish I’d gotten here sooner.”
~ Matthew