Door
Lora Parsons
The Ashland Beacon
If you Google “colorful doors Maica,” you’ll come across a picture that I just find to be beautiful. It’s of rows of different styles of doors all stacked on top of one another. Some are in bright colors, some in more muted tones, some with ivy growing around them or flowers at the bases. They’re just so vivid, and that picture is full of variety. The possibilities seem endless when I look at these doors. I can’t help but wonder what’s on both sides of them all. Doors keep us inside, locked away safely in a place of security, away from the outside world. Or they allow us to go into new places, to step foot through a passageway that takes us into another location, another experience, into a room or world with other people. Doors either allow us passage into new relationships, or they keep us safe inside familiar ones.
I love when Jesus plants a little thought like this that’s connected to something I see constantly. That means I’ve got a trigger-like connection to Him all day long. Every time I see a door, I think about obedience to Him. The word “door” isn’t really made up of any word parts like we sometimes break words into here. But it does have two tiny words hidden inside it, despite the fact that their meanings don’t really play into the word: do and or. Imagining myself standing in a doorway, there’s a decision to make. Do I go through it, out into the hallway, or out on the sidewalk, or out into the world, depending on where this door is? Or do I stay put inside the safety of my classroom or office, or inside the home I feel at peace in? Do I step outside, or do I stay put? Do I do—or do I not go?
I’ve learned about myself over the last few years that I tend to be a fast “no.” When someone asks me to go somewhere, especially if it’s a social kind of thing, I immediately want to decline. I’m an introvert, and groups of people—even ones that I love—are another thing I have to gear up for if I’m going to attend. Speaking to a group of people? No thank you; that’s scary. I’d much prefer to just keep to myself, nice and quiet, without the weight of later on analyzing everything I said and did. No overthinking what I do when it’s just me, crochet hooks, paintbrushes, and ink pens. It’s a world I rather enjoy, being alone. But, it’s not the way we’re called as Christians to interact with others. We’re called to go into the world to share the love of Jesus with those around us. To walk through doors, outside of ourselves, into others’ worlds.
It takes a little coaxing for me to do that sometimes, so I’ve set myself a few reminders around the places I frequently visit. This keeps fresh in my mind the importance of getting outside of myself. In my wallet, I have a reference to Psalm 90:17 with small hands drawn around it as a reminder to pray the prayer found there—that I would be about doing the work the Lord has called my hands to. The sunglasses pocket of my purse contains sermon notes from 2023 that keep this idea at the forefront of my mind as well—that I am called to go even when I want to say no. And, I’m not saying that we should say “yes” to everything, but I’ve tried to slow down my no’s and more carefully consider the yesses before just declining.
So, in the sunglasses pocket is a reminder not to “live my best life” or to “do what makes me happy,” but to instead follow God’s leading. It says in black marker, as a result of the notes I took the morning Trey (my husband) preached about the disciples fishing: “Because You said so, I will.” This phrase is extracted from Mark 5:5, where we read the account of Jesus telling the disciples to throw their nets on the other side of the boat. After expert fishermen spent a whole night fishing, the absurdity of simply throwing their nets to the other side would have made little sense. Do we really think they hadn’t tried that already?
They knew what they were doing. They’d been catching fish as their livelihood and were successful at it. But, this night, they’d caught nothing, paving the way for Jesus to step on the scene and intervene for them. Peter replies to the instruction: “…because you said so, I will…” and he casts the net. In this one instance, he’s specifically talking about lowering the net to the other side of the boat, but the cadence of that phrase has allowed it to stick with me with almost a sing-song rhythm so that it’s easy to recall. Whatever the “it” is, if it sits within the will of the Father, it should be met with a “yes.” Whatever the door before me, I should willingly walk through it simply because He opened it. There is no “or.” DO-OR-do-not shouldn’t be in the realm of possibility if I’m following Him as I should. It’s simply do-or. The end. There is nothing else…no or for anything to follow. Because You said so, I will. Period.
I was reminded this weekend, too, that the safest place for us to be as Christians is in the center of God’s will for our lives. Whatever He’s asking us to do that might be scary or out of our nature automatically becomes a lot less scary when we can remind ourselves that a place of surrender to Him is the safest place of all. Whatever “yes” He’s seeking from me is a lot safer place to go to because it’s under His guidance. Surrender is the safest place there is, because our Father is loving and merciful and full of enough grace to see us through whatever do-or He’s called us to walk through. My prayer is that of Psalm 90:17 and Mark 5:5 lumped into one—that He’ll keep providing work for my hands to do, and that I’ll be willing to do that work simply (and only) because He said so. Every DOOR I see is a reminder that I have a choice to DO-OR not. “…Because You said so, I will…”
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