In 1936 Marshall was asked by the search committee of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church to become their pastor. His response is quite revealing: “I am not yet ready for the responsibilities and the dignities which would be mine as minister of the New York Avenue Church. I am too young, too immature, too lacking in scholarship, experience, wisdom, and ability for such a high position. Time alone will reveal whether or not I shall ever possess these qualities of mind and heart that your pulpit demands.”17 But it was more than humility that kept him from accepting their offer. He felt drawn to the opportunity, but he had just accepted another pastorate and didn’t feel released from that responsibility. In other words the timing wasn’t right.
The will of God is like a lock with two pins. The first pin is “called to.” The second pin is “released from.” When you’re “released from” a current responsibility but not sure what you’re “called to,” it can feel like a spiritual no-man’s-land. You’re not sure what to do next. Until God gives further instruction, I would suggest doing what you heard Him say last.
Marshall found himself in the opposite situation. He actually felt “called to” New York Avenue Presbyterian, but he didn’t feel “released from” his current responsibility. A lesser man might have simply jumped at the opportunity, but Marshall maintained his integrity by saying no because it didn’t meet the twofold test. It was a year later, after the search committee failed to find another applicant on par with him, that they extended the offer once again. Marshall still felt “called to,” and by then he felt “released from,” so he accepted their offer, and the rest is history.
The Key of David
One of the promises in Scripture I pray most frequently is Revelation 3:7, and let me note up front that it’s a package deal. You can’t pray for open doors without accepting closed doors. After all, one usually leads to the other. In a sense, the closed door equates to “released from” and the open door equals “called to.”
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.18
I love the iconic opening to the television series Get Smart. Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86, walks through a series of doors to get to the top-secret CONTROL headquarters in Washington, DC. He enters through elevator doors and walks down a corridor with swinging doors, sliding doors, and jail-cell doors before finally entering a phone booth with an accordion door. By my count, Maxwell Smart walks through six doors before getting to where he is going.
I think that’s often how the will of God works. We walk through a door and think it’s our final destination, but it’s actually a door that leads to a door that leads to another door.
Let me have a little fun with this. On a spring day in 2006, I was working on my life-goals list. I was reading a biography of Martin Luther, which prompted Life Goal #106: visit the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, where Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses.
The very next day I got a phone call from a complete stranger inviting me to speak at an international symposium on the future of the church, in Wittenberg, Germany, on Reformation Day! Are you kidding me? It was one of those moments when you say, “Let me pray about it,” followed by a very short pause, followed by a very emphatic “yes!”
You can’t base all your decisions on timing, but divine timing is one of the ways God reveals His will. The invitation to speak at that event was a door of opportunity, one of my favorite types of doors. And the domino effect of that one door is difficult to detail, but I’ll give it a try.
I took a staff member with me, John Hasler, who eventually moved to Germany and opened our church’s café in Berlin with his wife, Steph. That trip was the key catalyst. Without it, I’m not sure the dream would have even been conceived.
I also met an author named George Barna and his agent, Esther Fedorkevich. Fast-forward two years. I don’t think I had a single conversation with Esther after that trip, but she happened to hear a story about Honi the Circle Maker that I shared in one of my sermons, because her brother and sister happened to attend our church. The next day I was wondering if that story might be the beginning of a book when Esther called me and said, “Mark, that’s your next book.” Esther negotiated the deal for The Circle Maker, and she’s represented every book of mine since then.
I thought I was going to Germany to go to Germany, but one door led to another door that led to Prachtwerk café, our Ebenezers equivalent in Berlin, Germany. And that door led to another door that led to The Circle Maker and every book since.
One of the most mysterious and miraculous ways in which God reveals His sovereignty is by opening and closing doors. Scripture is the key of keys, but there is another key mentioned in this promise: the key of David. It’s an allusion to the key that a man named Eliakim wore around his shoulder as a symbol of authority. As the mayor of David’s palace, Eliakim had an all-access pass. There was no door in the palace he could not open or close, lock or unlock. Eliakim is a type of Christ, who now holds the key of David. And Jesus is in the business of opening impossible doors and leading us to impossible places. It’s one of the ways He whispers.
And for Other Purposes
One of the scariest moments of my life as a leader was the day I got a voice-mail message informing me that the DC public school where our church gathered on Sundays was being closed. I was only two years removed from a failed church plant, and I was afraid it might happen again.
At the time National Community Church was a motley crew. Our income was two thousand dollars a month, and thirty people showed up on a good Sunday. And now we were on the verge of becoming a homeless church. I checked into two dozen options on Capitol Hill, but not a single door opened. Then one day, on a whim, I walked into the movie theaters at Union Station. That’s how I discovered that the theater chain had just rolled out a nationwide promotion, called their VIP program, to recruit use of their theaters when they were dark, like Sunday mornings for example. God didn’t just open a door; He rolled out the red carpet.
As I walked out of Union Station that day, I picked up a book on its history. The first sentence on the first page I turned to said,
If, on February 28, 1903, as he signed “an act to provide for a union station in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes,” President Theodore Roosevelt could have known what “other purposes” the station would entertain one day, he might at least have sighed before signing.19
“And for other purposes.”
That phrase jumped off the page and into my spirit. Teddy Roosevelt thought he was building a train station, and he was. But he was also constructing a church building fully funded by the federal government.
For thirteen years the movie theaters at Union Station were home to National Community Church, and it was an incredible run. Not many churches have the amenities that Union Station afforded us—forty food-court restaurants, a parking garage, and a citywide metro system that dropped people off at our front door. Then God did it all over again. I got a phone call in September of 2009 informing me that the theaters were shutting down one week later! We had one week to relocate a congregation that had grown into the thousands.
At first I grieved over that closed door. I honestly wondered if our best days were behind us. But if God hadn’t closed that door, I don’t think we would have initiated a search for property. Today we own half a dozen pieces of property, valued at roughly $50 million, thanks to a closed door. God has reasons beyond human reason. He has resources beyond human resources too!
Just as we’ll thank God for unanswered prayers as much as answered prayers, someday we’ll thank God for closed doors as much as open doors. We don’t like closed doors when they slam in our faces, and we often don’t understand them. But closed doors are expressions of God’s prevenient grace.
Sometimes closed doors come in the form of failure. Sometimes closed doors are che
cks in the Spirit that keep us from walking through the doors in the first place. Either way, God sometimes shows the way by getting in the way.
A Check in the Spirit
On his second missionary journey, the apostle Paul had every intention of going to Bithynia, a Roman province in Asia Minor. He had probably booked nonrefundable fares, but God closed the door. More specifically, Paul was “kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia.”20 That check in his spirit was followed by a vision of a man in Macedonia saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”21
What makes us think we will discern God’s will any differently than Paul did? Sure, we have a fuller revelation of God, thanks in large part to Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament. But Scripture doesn’t get us from Bithynia to Macedonia. The God who closed doors then also closes doors now, and to believe anything less is to undervalue the literality of Scripture.
As I mentioned earlier, when I was a senior in college, my whispering spot was the chapel balcony at Central Bible College. Like any college senior staring graduation in the face, I was trying to figure out what was next. That’s when I was offered a dream job by a pastor who happened to be my favorite chapel speaker. I was tempted to say yes on the spot. Why wouldn’t I accept the offer, my only offer? But as I paced the balcony and prayed about it one afternoon, I felt a strange check in my spirit. Saying no to what seemed a perfect situation on paper was one of the toughest decisions I’d made at that point in my life.
Less than a year later that pastor had to resign because of a moral failure. Would I have survived that situation? I’m sure God’s grace would have gotten me through just as it’s gotten me through everything else. But God closed the door to “Bithynia” in no uncertain terms—a very clear check in my spirit.
A check in the spirit is difficult to define, difficult to discern. It’s a feeling of uneasiness you can’t ignore. A sixth sense that something isn’t quite right. A lack of peace in your spirit. A check in the spirit is God’s red light, and if you don’t obey the sign, you might be headed for trouble.
God closes doors to protect us.
God closes doors to redirect us.
God closes doors to keep us from less than His best.
Bithynia was Plan A for Paul, so Macedonia probably felt like Plan B. He probably perceived it as a detour, but it led to a divine appointment with a woman named Lydia, who became the first European to convert to Christianity.22 And detours like this one were typical of all Paul’s missionary journeys. Remember the perfect storm that tossed his ship for fourteen days before it sank off the island of Malta?23 Was it a shipwreck? Or was it a divine appointment in disguise? How else would Paul have met Publius, the governor of Malta, or healed his sick father?24
Coincidence suggests shipwreck.
Providence demands divine appointment.
Remember the old axiom “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? The same could be said of our circumstances. What we perceive as detours and delays are often God’s ways of setting up divine appointments. And they often start out as closed doors.
Not Yet
Several years ago Lora and I were house hunting on Capitol Hill. Our first home there felt a little like Garbage Compactor 3263827 on the Death Star, which nearly crushed Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Princess Leia as it closed in on them. As our kids got bigger and bigger, our fifteen-foot-wide row house felt narrower and narrower. That’s when we found our dream home less than a block away, and it was a whole two feet wider!
We decided to make an offer well below the asking price, but we felt it was a fair offer. And it was our financial ceiling. So our first offer was our final offer, and it functioned as a fleece. With the real-estate market lagging and the house’s time on the market mounting, we thought we’d get a contract. We thought wrong. The seller did not accept our offer, and as much as we wanted the house, we took it as a sign to walk away. We were so disappointed that we stopped looking at homes.
Before I go any further, let me explain what I mean by a “fleece.” Our biblical precedent is found in Gideon, who put a wool fleece on his threshing floor overnight.25 Gideon was uncertain what God wanted him to do, so he attempted to confirm his calling by laying a dry fleece on the ground overnight. He then asked God to keep the ground dry around the fleece but allow the fleece to be wet with dew in the morning. Then he reversed the test, asking God to keep the fleece dry and wet the ground with dew. On both occasions God responded to and graciously honored Gideon’s request, confirming in his heart and mind his calling.
There is some debate as to whether Gideon should have done what he did. My opinion? Gideon did it in a spirit of humility, and God honored him with an answer both times. I think fleeces have God’s stamp of approval, but let me offer a few warnings and instructions.
First, test your motives. If you don’t test your motives, you might be testing God. And that’s not a good idea. Make sure you’re asking for the right reasons. Are you ready to obey, regardless of God’s answer? Is the fleece a cop-out? If you’re looking for an easy answer without any effort, good luck with that. The driving engine must be a genuine desire to honor God no matter what.
Second, delayed obedience is disobedience. Make sure the fleece isn’t a delay tactic. If it’s a subject God has already spoken on, don’t try His patience. Make sure the fleece isn’t a substitute for faith. Remember, faith is taking the first step before God reveals the second step. There is a time to seek God’s will, but there is a time to act on it too.
Third, set specific parameters in prayer. If you don’t define the fleece, it’s easy to come up with false negatives or false positives. Notice the specificity of Gideon’s fleece. And don’t discount the fact that it required divine intervention.
Back to our dream home. About a year after our offer was rejected, we were driving by the house we had tried to purchase, and Lora said, “Do you ever feel like that is the one that got away?” We weren’t fixating on the house. In fact, we drove by it almost every day without giving it a second thought. But her casual comment must have been a prophetic word, because the next morning there was a For Sale sign in front of it.
Can I state the obvious? Sometimes the signs God gives us are literal signs, like a For Sale sign! Don’t overlook the obvious. What Lora and I didn’t know is that the house had never sold; it simply had been taken off the market after 252 days. Based on the timing, I had a holy hunch that God might be up to something. Perhaps His no a year before was really a not yet. So we decided to lay down our fleece one more time.
Despite it being the same owner and the same asking price, we made the same offer, the offer he’d already turned down once before. We didn’t want to offend the seller, but we told our real-estate agent that it was our final offer. Not only did the seller accept our offer, but because of a rebound in the housing market, we sold our current home for a lot more money than we would have a year before.
We often think that when God closes a door, that is His final answer. We put a period where God puts a comma. We think it’s a no, but it’s really a not yet. Is it easy discerning between the two? Not at all. It’s hard to know when to hang on to a dream and when to let go. But here’s a rule of thumb: if you sense God saying no, give that dream back to Him with an open hand. That often takes more courage than hanging on. But if God hasn’t released you, then keep on keeping on.
Donkey Talk
One of the strangest episodes in Scripture is a talking donkey, and I hope the lesson isn’t lost on us. If God can speak through a donkey, He can speak through anything!
Forgive me for even suggesting this, but I wonder if the donkey had a British accent. That’s how I read it anyway. “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” asks the donkey.26 I love how articulate this donkey is! And I love that Balaam responds without skipping a beat, as if this is normal. “You have made a fool of me
! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”27
This is a sidebar, but if you have a talking donkey, the last thing you want to do is kill it. That talking donkey is your cash cow! Turn it into a road show or get a gig in Vegas! But whatever you do, don’t kill your talking donkey!
I love that the donkey is the rational one. “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”28 The donkey sounds like a trial lawyer recounting the facts to a jury. How does the prophet respond? He’s reduced to a one-word admission: “No.” And I’m guessing he mumbled it with his head down.
Like Balaam, we get frustrated when something gets in the way of where we want to go. We get frustrated with five-minute delays before getting on airplanes that will transport us at speeds that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors. Simply put, we want what we want when we want it, and usually we want it now. But sometimes the obstacle is the way! God gets in the way to show us the way.
The angel who stops Balaam in his tracks says, “I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me.”29
The word reckless comes from the Hebrew word yarat,30 and it’s the ancient equivalent of reckless driving. It’s overdriving a car’s headlights in the fog. It’s driving thirty miles per hour over the speed limit around S curves on the Pacific Coast Highway in California.
Don’t be surprised if God slows you down.
Don’t be surprised if God gets in the way.
Why? Because He loves you too much to let you go headlong into trouble.
If Balaam’s donkey teaches us anything, it’s this: God can use anything to accomplish His purposes, and He can do it anywhere, anytime, anyhow. And He particularly likes using foolish things to confound the wise and weak things to confound the strong.31 In other words we all qualify!
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