OPENING DOORS

I previously wrote a blog related to “Open Doors” in the life of a believer. The following blog is very similar in nature, but with a slight spin, if you will. The title says it all. Same two words, but the first word is no longer a noun, but a verb.

Opening Doors

The implication is clear. It is the act of trying the door knob to see if it is locked, twisting it to the right, pushing open the door, and walking across the threshold.

And whereas, I think most Christians are fairly comfortable walking into a figurative open door, an opportunity which seems to us to be momentary and circumstantial in nature, and giving our testimony of the saving power of Jesus Christ, opening doors, well, as Forrest Gump might say, “That’s a whole ‘nother country!”

(Yeah, it is).

I expect the possibility of opening doors occurs several times more frequently than does the opportunity to walk through an open door. The former is much more proactive, and involves creating an occasion in which we share the Gospel of our Lord.

As a ‘for instance,’ if you are standing at a checkout counter in the grocery store, and the clerk happens to be a passing acquaintance, and she says something like,

“Hi Joe. I know you knew and loved my dad. Well, he passed away last week,” then it is not a ‘stretch’ to respond with,

“I am so sorry, Marjorie. I have experienced too many deaths in my own family. Thank God for the free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.”

However, if you are standing in that same line, and the bagboy has left to push a shopping cart out for an old lady, and Marjorie is forced to not only ring up your groceries, but bag them, and she didn’t lose her dad that week, (at least she didn’t say so) then you are faced with the possibility of using that time to engage in small talk, or go out of your way to witness to Marjorie. Like Boom, “let me tell you what Jesus has done for me.” This, my friend, would be an excellent example of opening a door.

Pt. 2

Of course, just as there are many more occasions to engage ourselves in opening a door, rather than an overt opportunity to walk through an obvious open door, there are also more variables involved in the former than the latter of the two occasions.

More times than not opening a door occurs between two people who have already developed some sort of social relationship with one another.

However, speaking of a total lack of relationship, and the principle of opening doors, there is one church on what most Church members consider to be on the fringe of the Christian faith which sends its representatives on weekly ‘door knocking’ campaigns.

This particular group, whereof I speak, visited my neighborhood, and rang my doorbell every Saturday for weeks, and as often as they rang, I failed to go to the door. However, after what might have been 23 failed attempts to harangue me with their version of the Gospel, I finally went to the door, and confronted the inevitable. I considered reminding the three ladies that I had a “No Solicitation” sign next to my doorbell. But I refrained from doing so. But rather than listening to what I will lovingly refer to as their ‘spiel’ I said,

“Ladies, I appreciate your efforts, but I am a believer, and I attend a different denomination (which, by the way, expounds a more authentic version of the Gospel). Would you mind telling your ‘powers that be’ that I would rather not be on your list to have my doorbell rang every Saturday for the rest of my natural life?”

To their credit their spokesperson told me that they would respect my wishes, and I haven’t seen “hide nor hair of them” since that very day.

I, for one, have never participated in a door knocking campaign, not because I am ‘agin’ it, but because I don’t believe the results of that kind of effort support it, and because people tend to be private, and consider their house and homestead a place of safety and seclusion from everything going on in the world at large. Not only this, but this kind of opening doors is totally devoid of having established any sort of previous relationship with another person.

Pt. 3

In regard to opening doors, another variable is (quite obviously) the existence of the ‘fear factor.’ I mean, the fear factor is something even a handsome, gum chewing, fairly self-possessed, 220 pound creature like me contends with.

Twisting that doorknob, pushing the door open, and strolling in like I “own the place” has never been my method of operation. It’s just not comfortable, and certainly not convenient. But as I sometimes remind my clients, students and interns, “Comfort and Convenience aren’t required.”

Another obvious element in opening doors, and the choice to do or not to do so is the presence (or lack thereof) of a message. What, after all, are we to say? The boldest of our number might well say something like,

“Hey Nancy. Do you know there’s a real devil and a real hell, and if you don’t change your ways, and ask Jesus to rid you of your foul mouth and fouler deeds, you are gonna split the Lake of Fire wide open!”

(Probably not the best way to win friends and influence people).

However, if we are to “be ready always to offer a reason for the hope that is within us” (1^st Peter 3:15) it behooves us to prepare ourselves with a message unique to ourselves which will, no doubt, include our personal testimony.

And finally, at least for my purposes here, when we consider opening a door, we absolutely MUST be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Ecclesiastes 3:7 assures us that “…there is a time to keep silence and a time to speak.”

I’m convinced that every conscientious believer has experienced that inner compulsion which prompted him or her to open his or her mouth, and share the Gospel with someone whom God set in his or her pathway.

Afterward

Stepping through doors that open of their own accord, as well as opening doors that appear closed are part and parcel of living out, as Watchman Nee would refer to it, “The Normal Christian Life.”

I think it behooves us to pray (and pray often),

“Lord, don’t let me miss whatever remains of my destiny, and give me the wisdom and wherewithal to walk through the doors, open and closed, which regularly present themselves to me.”

by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending