Knocking on doors that won’t open and seeking answers

Knocking on doors is a favorite activity in our neck of the woods. We live in a neighborhood packed full of active little adventure seeking boys. And every afternoon my youngest hardly finishes the last word of his daily reading assignment before he announces, “Hey, mom! I’m going to knock on doors!”

Without waiting for an answer, he bolts down the front steps and begins his quest for playmates; visions of  friends with footballs, afternoon creek adventures, and bike riding obstacle courses dancing in his mind. All of that seems quite possible as he begins his journey.

But. There are those days when life doesn’t go as planned. And sometimes no doors are opened. Sometimes he wanders back toward our house alone and irritated declaring that there is no one in whole world to play with! You see, door knocking isn’t really the thing. It is a meaningless activity if the answer he’s seeking isn’t there.

I watch him pout on the front stairs one fruitless door knocking day, an old cap gun strapped to his waist and a resurrected set of walkie- talkies in his hand. “What’s wrong buddy?” I ask, as if I don’t know.

“What am I supposed to do now? All the doors are closed even after I knocked a lot,” he replies kicking at the dirt. I make a few suggestions which cause him to pout even more because they do not involve his friends. I’ve learned to pick my battles; so I leave him be.

He wanders aimlessly and continues to go back to those empty houses and knock again. Because, maybe, right? I watch him wander and knock and wander some more. And oh how I get it.

While I don’t often wander the neighborhood with cap guns strapped to my waist, I am quite familiar with the empty feeling that comes from knocking on doors that just won’t open.

Maybe you too? Unanswered questions that haunt you; those same prayers breathed out again and again into the silent air and that ache in your knuckles from the repeated rapping on doors which remain tightly sealed.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you…” ( Matthew 7:7).

There is an church camp old song with that verse; its tune runs constantly through my head when I am in a season of seeking answers. I hum it all day; somewhat hopeful that it might magically make an answer appear. But, then. No.

You see, there are times when doors just don’t open like you want them to; times when Jesus doesn’t swing the barricade wide and come bursting down the front steps with clarity. Times when the world around us appears to be coming apart at the seams.

And in these times, I find myself certain that my own efforts can produce the answers I am seeking.  Like my little guy with perfect visions dancing behind my eyes, I desperately want to make it right. So I stand impatient, worried and stubborn enough to think that if I just pound harder on the unopened door I can produce a solution.

Because Jesus wants it to be right, too, doesn’t he? He said that he came that we might have life and have it to the fullest. He promises that those of us who claim his name will be filled with the Holy Spirit, that we will hear his voice and be fishers of men, if we just follow him. He opens doors and heals wounds and sends us out to do his work. And sometimes this goes well, and it is so clear how God meant it all to be.  

And sometimes? Sometimes we can’t see, and we can’t hear. Sometimes he is so quiet.

Sometimes doors don’t open, and we have no idea what to do next.

Unable to change his mood, I leave the little one alone on the steps with his pout and scowl for company. After a bit, though, I peek out and notice that he is building something in the backyard. Fallen tree branches and sticks are his companions, and he is singing to himself as he works.

I holler out to check on him. “I am fine!” he replies buried under his construction project, “I remembered that my friends are all coming back. They didn’t leave forever; just for a little bit.” And then he gets back to work.

The doors won’t always stay shut. That’s what he remembered. His sweet and silly friends would come back. And that remembering made all the difference in the way his waiting space felt.

Yeah. You see, Jesus never promised to open every door on our first knock. He never promised that when we seek we would always find exactly what we are looking for. This world is not our home and so much of it makes no sense.

Do you know what he did promise though?

Himself. He promised to never leave us. He promised to overcome this world; to love us. And, yes. He promised to come back.

Oh, that we could remember that when everything appears to be falling apart. When we can’t see him; when it is quiet, lonely, and the space around us is full of questions with no good answers, and when we knock on doors that won’t open, could we remember that God hasn’t left us? Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

We can’t see it all now. Paul writes that now we see through a mirror dimly but one day we will see it all clearly; face to face.

And until then?

We take heart. We wait. We trust. We love.  We keep seeking his face. We do justice, we love kindness, we walk humbly with our God. We do the work in front of us.

And while we work and wait and hope? We sing. Because we remember that he’s coming back. And we know the end of the story.

“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 21:3-4).