[pause] for the cause pace

The road trip from St. Louis to Denver takes its toll on a traveler.

It's 12-13 hours, minimum. It's one highway (I-70). The scenery mostly bores once west of Manhattan, KS. Also, the elevation above sea level slightly -- yet steadily -- ascends the entire drive; so while it appears flat as paper, it's nothing but incline. This adds to the drive time, and slowly induces altitude sickness symptoms if you're not hydrated.

This road trip I've done this a few times. Did a Colorado ski trip once with friends, and to arrive in Denver by 6PM for dinner, we hit the road at 6AM. While we pushed ourselves and made it, it felt miserable.

I preferred this trip when we chose to stop for the night. Hays, KS is an ideal location -- it's more than halfway, it's along the interstate.

This gets to my main thought for us all today: some journeys, some trips, some endeavors are better experienced when we take the built-in pause for the cause. Yeah, without a stop we'd arrive faster, but for what? Who's keeping track? By whose standard are we early, or late, or on time? 

We get there when we get there. 

In the meantime, let's stop to fill up on gas, take a leak, relax these brains of ours, fill up our water bottles, stretch our legs, gulp in some fresh air, grab a snack. This is a time when we're in one of the great, expansive in-betweens of life. We're on our way. We get there when we get there.

For every exit ramp, there's a nearby entrance ramp for us too.

did God just open (or close) that door?

Maybe you've heard about what God does with doors.

God opens doors. Or God closes doors.

 

We walk through doors that God opens for us. We walk away from the doors that God closes to us. Sounds fairly simple, doesn't it?

 

Perhaps. But not always.

 

For most of my life, I've heard this paradigm in the context of how to discern situations and life choices. And for most of my life, this made sense to me. 

 

But then I heard a talk once that challenged my reflex thinking, and I recorded the quote and wrote it down because it rocked me that much.

 

"Christians get a little too caught up in the open door, closed door thing. They say, 'Well, I'm praying about getting married, or trying some new job, or learning some new skill, and I'm going to see if the Lord opens a door or closes a door.

 

You know, sometimes the door is open. Sometimes the door is closed. And sometimes you need to tear the door off the hinges. 

 

Sometimes you have to say, 'This is a closed door, and God isn't going to make it easy for me.' You look at all the quest stories in the Bible, time after time, God throws up one obstacle, maybe two obstacles, puts people off, makes them face some barrier, and after they face that barrier and persevere, then God gives it to them." -Dr. DD

 

This continually encourages me.  

God's plans for life seldom fit so simply into a closed door/open door paradigm.

 

As I've accrued life and experiences, I'd rarely describe God's will for my life feeling as easy as waltzing through a wide-open door. In fact, few things in life are that easy (except of course, walking through actual doors, particularly supermarket doors that open as you approach). 

 

Usually, it feels like...

-building the door frame,

-securing the frame in place for the door,

-sanding the frame,

-pulling out the splinters accrued from sanding the frame,

-finding the tools to build the door,

-finding the lumber,

-and THEN getting to work on building a door.

 

A takeaway point from this?

 

Often, what's best for life and what God desires for me will involve actual struggle, because ... it's actual life. It will take real effort, and it'll rarely be as easy as walking through an open door. It'll require more of me (and of you) than that. 

 

Give this some thought. 

Luke 11:5-13