Knocking on Doors and Merry Christmas!

Christmas is a time when we knock on each other’s doors, visit, have dinner and attend parties with our neighbors, friends, co-workers and families. The go-to response to a knock at the door is at Christmas time is, “Come in!”

We also speak of knocking on doors with regard to our hopes, our desires, and in our decision making. The doors of our lives have opened and closed a bit mysteriously in recent years.

After Dan knocked on many doors, one finally opened at World Relief in Wheaton, where he works as the Director of Operations and Finance.  World Relief deals with immigration services and refugee resettlement, and we have a new appreciation for what is involved with helping refugees re-establish themselves in this land.  Throughout this series of open and closed doors, we have asked God, what is this all about? “Trust me,” he says.

Not to be outdone, I have transitioned from my role as Teaching Director to Area Director for Community Bible Study. It’s a very different role and requires a new set of skills, but I’m enjoying the challenge.  Even so, it was a difficult change to make.  When I question myself, God says, “Trust me.”

Christine and Joaquim are walking through new physical doors this year after buying their first home.  They are thoroughly enjoying their place, felt immediately at home, and have settled nicely into the neighborhood. They are both working in the same jobs, Oliver is in kindergarten, and Elion never, ever, sits still.  The doors of their lives are constantly in motion, and when they stop to ask God what it’s all about, I’m sure he answers, “Trust me.”

Kenny and his fiancé Miranda, also a medical student, are busy knocking on doors for their upcoming residencies.  They will graduate from medical school this May and get married on June 4^th.  It’s anybody’s guess where they will be living for the next several years, and we watch with interest.  God surely says, as they begin their careers, “Trust me.”

A wide opened door presented itself to Brian and Kelly who are now residents of Tacoma, WA.  They moved in late August, in time for Brian to begin a teaching job.  Kelly got a job a week later, and after a bit of a scramble they are settled and adjusting to new jobs, new friends, and a new place.  If they wonder what’s going on, God would no doubt respond, “Trust me.”

Mary and Joseph knocked at the door of an inn in Bethlehem on the night on which Jesus was born, but there was no room for them. I wonder what they thought about that.  “What? Doesn’t God see that his Son is about to be born?  Does he really want him born in a manger?”  It didn’t make any sense.

The door to the inn was firmly closed, and God essentially said, “Trust Me.”

Perhaps God had arranged for Jesus to be born in a stable, in the lowliest of circumstances, so that we would all know that he came to this earth without any earthly advantage whatsoever. The King of kings had no royal birth.  The angelic announcement of the birth of the One who would save the world was made to a group of uneducated and outcast shepherds.

Jesus was born on this earth in desperately humble circumstances to make a way for us all to spend eternity with Him in glory. When we knock on His door, Jesus says resoundingly, “Come in!”

“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

With warm wishes for a Merry Christmas and a blessed 2016!