Have you ever heard "When God closes a door, He opens a window"? I have often heard that phrase shared by Christians when the course they charted hits snags or suddenly ends. I would like to add my own take on that saying: "When God closes a door, He sends a servant". You see, I have often found that when I am at my lowest point because of circumstances, God always sends a brother/sister in Christ at just the right time. This fellow pilgrim may not even know the impact they have made on my life, but they speak deep into my soul by their words or their actions or their attitude.
This morning my quiet time was Ephesians 6:10. I am working my way through the book of Ephesians in my quiet time, but this one verse was more than enough as God spoke loudly and lovingly into my life. If you haven't looked up the passage yet, it says "Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power". That may not resonate with you, but it hits at my very fiber. If I am to be strong in the Lord, then I must be weak in myself. In other words, I need to stop trusting what I can or cannot do and begin trusting God, His direction and His purposes. That's not easy for me to do. When there is a problem, I try to fix it. It something isn't right, then I will jump in and try to make it right. My first response is NOT to pray or give God time to do His thing. My first response is to fix the problem. Work it and make everything run smoothly. Which means whenever their is a problem, I get intense and focused until that problem is resolved the way I think it should be resolved. Doing this is the polar extreme of being strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. God is loving and patient enough with me to continually allow me the opportunity to learn this lesson.
It happened again this past week as Hillcrest prepared for our largest outreach of the year, the Hillcrest Community Fair. A barbecue place down the road from the church was going to cook our 120 pounds of chicken. This opened up more workers and the parking lot for us to have more outdoor activities. The Fair is going to happen on Friday, so I took the chicken down to the restaurant on Thursday at 10:00, when they told us to deliver it. No one was there. I called the place and no one answered. They open at 11:00, so I figured I would drop it off then. I show up at 11:00 and no one is there and it is still closed. As I am pondering what to do next, the owner just "happened" to arrive. He told me that they went out of business the week before and couldn't cook our chicken. A huge, sound proof, steel door just slammed shut. My normal reaction would have been panic, but a young man in our church was with me helping me move everything, so I couldn't panic in front of him. We took the chicken back to the church and I drove the young man home, which gave me time to run through every option in my mind, but also led me to prayer (Prayer should have been my first option).
When I arrived at home a few minutes later, I called one of our wonderful servants on the phone. I told Wayne if he could cook the chicken, since he had cooked at the Fair in past years. His response..."No". So I waited on the phone until he stopped laughing. His words were something along this line: "Pastor, we got this". Wayne said he would bring his smoker and grill. I asked if I should bring my gas grill and he said I could if I wanted. When God closes a door, He sends a servant. A few minutes after that call, another member called because I had sent him a text about the barbecue place. Tom was serving jury duty for the entire week and was going to barely make it to the Fair before it began on Friday, so there really wasn't anything he could do. As we talked about what happened and Wayne stepping up to cook, Tom said, "Well, I guess this is reason God allowed my jury duty to end a few minutes ago". When God closes a door, He sends a servant. Not only did God send one servant, but he sent two at the moment I needed it the most. Once again, this served as a vivid reminder to be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Panic only kicks in when I see with my limited vision rather than trusting God's unlimited scope!
The chicken was cooked and cooked well, all 120 pounds of it. They didn't even use my grill (See, I still couldn't just let it go and trust God's hand). The Fair was a raging success as over 170 guests came to Hillcrest and experienced the tangible love of Jesus. The side lesson was just for me: Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Trust Him to provide a way and a people to prepare the chicken. Enjoy his servants who are bold enough to say, "We got this". Trust God working through those folks rather than what I can or cannot do.
When God closes a door, He sends a servant!
When the Hebrews couldn't leave slavery in Egypt, God sent Moses!
When the Israelites couldn't rid themselves of the Midianites, God sent Gideon!
When David headed down the wrong path of adultery, God sent Nathan!
When John Mark was not allowed to go with Paul on the second missionary journey, God sent Barnabas!
The list goes on, but is best summarized by John the Baptist in John 3:30 when he spoke of his relationship to Jesus and said "He must increase and I must decrease". Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.
So what are you trying to fix? Maybe God has closed a door so He can send a servant your way. Maybe He will send you to someone in need and you can be the servant to someone who has had a door closed. The joy of this journey with Jesus is that there is always an adventure awaiting us with wonderful pilgrims to join us and encourage us.
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