The God of Peripheral Vision

Have you ever heard the phrase: “God doesn’t close one door, but He opens another”?

I have to be honest, here – I try to avoid using those words in any sentence that comes out of my mouth. It seems to suggest that God is a great puppeteer who goes around steering my robotic form here and there – shoving me through a threshold or pushing me back out over the doorjamb --- opening and closing doors that always seem to have a slamming sound at the end --- all the while expecting me to sit passively by and merely wonder: “Is the answer through Door Number One or Door Number Three????”  “Doesn’t matter”, says the Cosmic Angelic Co-host: “God Knows Best”.

Well, I do think there is something to be said for God knowing what is best for us overall and I would also add a personal disclaimer that sometimes God has been present in amazingly personal ways. But closing and opening doors just doesn’t speak convincingly to me about my interactions with my Creator and the freedom I have been given to make choices in the life I live.

Perhaps it is not so much that God closes one door and opens a new one, but that I am looking in the wrong place.

I find it amusing to think of myself staring at a blank wall just waiting for “The Door” to mysteriously appear that God will magically open; when, actually, I am really waiting for a door to open that will look like – feel like – taste like – smell like – and sound like the door I wanted in the first place.

What if the door that God opens is the one on my peripheral vision – that area of sight that is not  front and center?

Perhaps the God-Shaped Door is the one that I might see if I were to stop staring straight ahead.

Maybe it is not so much that God closes one door and opens another but rather that God has a door open and is waiting for me to notice.

Photo credits:

#1 "Doors" by MrKilzo

#2  "The Doors" by tavarin d3awrdt

#3  "Opening Doors" by Penelope T

#4  "Old Doors 7" by bakenekogirl

#5 "Vintage III" by oriontrail