During college I was an intern for a campus ministry that we called the BSU. I was pretty pumped about getting this opportunity, but what was even cooler was that I got to live there! Full kitchen. Couches. Pool table! Ping pong table. A sound system. Drums, piano, mics. Students coming to worship. Constant company. All the things I could want at 19!
Living with one of my best friends who also played the guitar and who also didn’t sleep was the best. 2:00 AM…Buddy you wanna go play music? Yep. Coming! Buddy! You wanna pierce my ear? Yep. Coming! Buddy! You wanna get tattoos? Yep. Coming! (Well…some of that was a few years later, but this was the type of friend I lived with.)
A man named Larry ran the place. My buddy and I would be playing music at random times throughout the day and Larry would walk in.
“In my life be lifted high. In our world be lifted high. In our love be lifted….(enter Larry) Larrrrriiiffffusssss….where did your hair go? Larrifus oh how you love us so. Larry Larry Larry LAAARRRRYYYY!!!!! You’re so Larry!!”
This guy put up with us for years! That explains a bit about how patient, kind and easy- going he was.
So as I’m still learning about this whole blogging world, I found out about this thing called the “Daily Prompt.” Pretty much The Daily Post provides one word a day and then you see where your mind takes it. Today the word was wrinkle. In an effort to prevent the whole Facebook world from being overloaded with Brooke posts, I thought I had kept it from sharing on Facebook, but apparently not. Anyway…I wrote a brief poem called Through the Wrinkle. I wrote about a fork in the road, God directing our steps, and Proverbs 16:9. After accidentally letting it slip through and go to Facebook, I only had to answer a couple of questions about whether or not I am leaving town. I promise I’m not! I was simply thinking about wrinkles in our plans! I’m actually glad it slipped through because I got a bit of wisdom from Larry.
When I was in a quandary to determine what God intended for my life — at age 17 — a wise man told me the following.
It’s like having three doors in front of you and you ponder which door to open. You can stand and ponder for a long time but you never proceed. So go through one of the doors. Go forward. You might look back and realize all three doors opened to the same place. The tragedy is too many people spend too much time staring at the three doors and never realizing the great benefits and rewards by simply going through one of the doors.
How often do we do this? Stand and look at doors and wait for one to fly open? Just go push on one! If God doesn’t want you to go through a specific door, then He’ll lock it up. Or maybe he wants you to go through one just for the path that takes you to the same destination that another would. Or maybe if you simply have the desire to be obedient no matter where he leads, then maybe He’s saying…just pick a door. Which one do you want to choose?
I remember a few years ago knocking…(more or less) beating at a door trying to make it open. Come to find out, God had barricaded that one shut…but there was another door. (My back screen door is a wooden frame with a light netting on it. My dog decided to eat it. At this point Everly and Hads do not even have to open the door…they just walk through the frame. That’s on my list of things to have fixed!) This other door was like my back door. Wide open and required zero effort to get through.
Are you exerting all your energy to push open a door that’s been cemented shut? Why not glance around and see if there’s another one that’s being left wide open for you! 🙂
Bye friends! 🙂