Praying for a Closed Door

There’s nothing that excites me more than a good idea. And one of the things I’ve learned to guard against is my own propensity to get carried away with an idea that stirs the heart. Sometimes, I can go for months with no such inspiration. In other seasons, the “good ideas” will break and ebb perpetually as waves on the beach.

When an idea evolves to opportunity, it’s often exciting, but perilous ground.

In 50 years it’s become evident when something that feels like a good idea pours into my heart, it’s best to resist a natural urge to go with a gut instinct that almost always wants to bore full steam ahead. Some call it patience, or a process of discernment, or even the kind of wisdom that comes with age. I often call it excruciating agony.

But I’ve made enough of those kinds of mistakes that it comes easier than it once did. Thank God for his grace and freedom that permits our mistakes and wrong turns.

As Dana and I walked the Camino a few weeks ago, I meditated and prayed on two or

three ideas that have ebbed and flowed through my heart for a few years now. While each had the potential to fulfill a unique calling I feel toward my own purpose, my relatively new proclivity to patience, and the desire to get it exactly right the next time around have created a kind of extended “holding pattern” that’s been both uncomfortable and peaceful at the same time.  It’s an odd enigma that feels strangely normal now, and pours out of a heartfelt desire to follow what’s most real in my life.

One of those ideas has long involved the acquisition of neighborhood commercial property just two blocks from our home. It’s an ideal place for living out a calling Dana and I both sense in our lives – one of those rare things that comes almost naturally with no effort at all. In the times it’s come available in recent years and when my juices would flow, something always said, “Wait, wait, wait. It’s not your time just yet.” So I’ve waited. I meditated on this circumstance a lot as we walked.

One night on the Camino as we overnighted in Mañeru, a small village just outside Puenta la Reina, I enjoyed the best night’s sleep we’d had since the trek began. The bed was comfortable, the room was absent the stuffiness we’d experienced for the several preceding nights, and the proprietors were kind and gracious. There were even enough spare pillows around to create the nightly nest I’m accustomed to back home. The good sleep brought a transcendent peace.

Less than a handful of times I’ve experienced dreams (for lack of a better term) that were more real than reality. At times, they’ve been as vivid and clear as the most beautiful day in your life. Last year, I wrote about one such experience here. Others, like this one, brought a less resplendent confirming peace that satisfies a restless soul like few things I’ve ever known.

That night, I felt the voice of the Holy Spirit telling me the property back home would be available to me when we returned, and the “time” was now. And it didn’t feel remotely abrupt. It was dream-like, yet not a dream. It sounds weird, but it wasn’t. When I awoke, I said, “okay,” and we walked on. The experience was as real as the blisters I’d been nursing for days now, yet graciously didn’t overwhelm the pilgrimage experience as some profound revelation. It seemed, rather, just a natural, seamless part of the bigger experience. I’d best describe it as “gentle.”

And so we walked on. Ultreia, we say on the camino.

***

Yesterday, 19 days post-camino I went through the regular morning routine of gathering what I needed to complete the daily errands. Our neighborhood is configured in such a way that almost any errand takes me by that property. As I approached, there was an unusual activity that caught my eye as movers emptied the building into three large moving vans. There was another strange sensation as if a surprise that I knew was coming. I’m becoming more accustomed to these odd sensitivities.

My “dream” had come true. The business located on the property was moving to a new location. Maybe it wasn’t a dream after all.

On the spot, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to begin making calls and contacts about the property, like a natural extension of the peace I’d experienced in that cozy albergue bed.

If we pursue this calling, a dozen things will have to perfectly align to make it work. A personality like mine can get easily worked up about scenarios far less involved than this. It would be easy to push things in an excitedly urgent sort of way. I have to remind myself if it’s God’s plan for us, that peaceful sense will remain throughout.

I’m not an eloquent prayer. My prayers are simple conversations with God and I frequently find myself at a loss for exactly what to say in situations like this. In just that situation last night, I recalled a recent conversation with a respected long-distance friend now considering three extraordinary service opportunities all at the same time. Any one of them fits his gifting and unique capacity to make a real difference in the world. As we agreed to pray for one another about some different things, here’s a paraphrase of something he said that seemed the perfect answer to prayer about my own situation:

“So I need unmistakable guidance. When I have asked for such in the past, God has always been so kind to clearly open certain doors and clearly slam others shut.”

The realization brought a reinforced peace that feels so right. If I truly pursue His will, and if He’s in this situation as I want Him to be, and if it’s purposed for His glory and not mine, he’ll close the door shut if it’s not His will. It gave me such peace to know if this opportunity somehow vanishes, it will be Him who closed the door for my good.

“Lord if it’s not right, close the door. Slam it shut. Slam it hard.”

I’m good with that. Anyway, it’s exciting, and all good.

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