Growing up in church, you can’t help learning all the Bible stories – Noah’s Ark, Daniel and the Lion’s Den, Jonah and the Whale. I’ve heard those stories over and over, yet still God sometimes shows me something new.
Recently I was praying through the Bible for one of my children and I found myself face to face with the story of Noah. His faithfulness. His obedience in building this massive ark while those around him must’ve thought he was crazy.
After Noah finished building the ark and loading all the animals and his family into it, Scripture say that God closed the door of the ark.
God closed the door of the ark.
Not Noah.
God.
God must’ve known how difficult it would be for Noah to shut himself and his family into that vessel. They would be all alone, the only humans left on the earth. How frightened must they have been? Yet, in God’s kindness, He did what Noah couldn’t do. He closed the door.
God closed the door in order to protect Noah and his family from the wrath that was to come. Yet so many times we can’t understand why God is closing a door in our lives.
I’ve recently been writing our family’s memoir. I wanted to document God’s faithfulness in our lives, how He put our family together in His own way. It’s a pretty cool thing, this looking back to find God’s hand weaving through everything.
There were many times when God closed doors and I couldn’t understand why. One of those times was when Peter applied to physical therapy school.
Peter had applied to six different PT schools. Everyone told him he would have no trouble getting into any of the ones he’d applied to. We were confident we’d have our choice of schools for him to attend. Yet it didn’t work out that way.
Peter got into one school.
One.
The one he was skeptical about in the first place because it was a two-year doctoral program instead of the usual three-year school. He knew it would be intense and he wasn’t sure he wanted to put himself through that sort of rigor.
But if God hadn’t closed the doors to those other PT programs, if Peter had gone to a traditional 3 year program, we wouldn’t have moved to Tennessee. And he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do his dream job – the job he has now – being a physical therapist as part of the Air Force-wide program he helped create during his last year on active duty.
If God hadn’t closed the doors to those other PT programs, I wouldn’t have been able to stay home with Jillienne when we brought her home from India because Peter would’ve still been in school. God knew even before he applied for PT schools way back in 2017 what our lives would look like in 2020. He closed those doors for our protection and for our good.
It’s easy now to look back and see God’s hand but when you’re in the middle of the struggles, it’s often difficult to understand what God is doing. We can’t see the big picture, but thankfully, He can.
You may not love to write or journal, but I want this be an encouragement to you – write down the things you’re struggling with. The things you don’t understand. Then in a few weeks or months, or even years, look back and see how God provided for you. Maybe He shut a door you wanted to walk through in order to protect you or steer you down another path.
Looking back on God’s faithfulness always reminds me of how good He is. And when life gets hard, we need that reminder.