I don’t believe in closed doors. I believe in smashing through them. Let me explain:
Growing up in church I repeatedly heard phrases like these:
“I was going to become a [insert occupation] but God closed that door.”
“I am unsure what direction to go but God keeps opening up doors so I keep walking through them.”
“We wanted to get involved with [insert opportunity] but God closed that door.
I was taught that when an opportunity seemed to close it was a sign from God that I needed to move in a different direction. If this is true, what we are saying is, “If it’s hard then it must not be God’s will.” This doesn’t jive with the practices of the early church at all. At the risk of offending people, I think the open/closed door concept is bad theology and a terrible way to make decisions. If we had taken this approach in our pursuit of adoption we would have given up after a few hours.
Because we knew jack-nothing about adoption, one of the first things we did was call a large and reputable American adoption agency. An agent explicitly told me that the girl we wanted to adopt was too old and it would be impossible to adopt her. Disappointed, I called the branch of the US government that processes international adoptions and was told that the adoption was impossible because by law the adoption needed to be complete before the girl’s 16th birthday which was only 2 ½ months away. There just wasn’t enough time.
The door had closed. I was distraught. I went for a run to process the news. Was God telling us that adoption wasn’t His will for us? I don’t think that’s how God works. We already knew God’s feelings on injustice and orphans in particular. We weren’t out of bounds in pursuing adoption. I believe that sometimes God allows us to run into a closed door so that we can experience His power when He smashes through it. And so we decided to do some smashing.
As my feet pounded out the last leg of my run, I decided that we would not take no for an answer. If it meant flying to Ukraine and bribing government officials we would do it. Be warned, this is the sort of crazy behavior that happens when injustice moves from abstract ideas to real relationships.
And so, I kept pushing and calling and eventually found the loophole we needed. Because of the audacious determination of a pastor and his wife in Colorado, there was an addendum to American adoption law that would permit us to adopt an older orphan. I guess that couple doesn’t believe in closed doors either.
So here’s my challenge: pay no attention to closed doors. If you’re pursuing something that you already know God cares about and if your community is behind your pursuit don’t give up! Smash through that door! If you’ve recently smashed through a closed door I would love to hear about it.
Tomorrow I’ll finish this series by sharing how everything fell apart.
Photo by percivalsmithers
