Locked Doors

Chelsea and I have a habit of locking ourselves out of our house. I usually discover my mistake as soon as I get to my car, grab the door handle, and nothing happens. That’s when I realize that I left my keys hanging up by the door. We have a keypad on the garage door at our current house, which would make you think that we wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. However, the last time I locked myself out, we had recently moved here and didn’t know the code. Thankfully one of the people I contacted did know the code and my lock-out only lasted for thirty minutes or so. When we lived in Tennessee, we didn’t have a code or a garage door and locking yourself out of the house was quite serious. In fact, the last time I locked myself out of our house there, I was in a hurry and trying to make it to an appointment when I discovered my car door wouldn’t unlock. The only window we had open in the entire house was the kitchen window, which was a good eight or nine feet off the ground and a couple of feet away from the back deck. I ended up climbing onto the deck railing, letting my body fall across the five or six foot gap, opening the window, then squeezing my body through the tiny opening, crashing unceremoniously into the kitchen sink. But I got inside and even made it to my appointment only slightly late.

Do you ever felt like you are locked out of areas in your life or future? Like you encounter a locked door every time you move forward? Or maybe you feel that way in your spiritual life. Like every time you try to make right choices, you encounter a new obstacle or temptation. The apostle Paul gives us some really good news about that: “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). No matter what difficulties, road blocks, or locked doors you encounter, God has made a way of escape. It may only be a tiny kitchen window eight or nine feet off the ground, but He’s promised to help you through it. And with His promise, that tiny window is as large and as accessible as a garage door.