door slammed

A door slammed in my face. All of us have had this happen, opportunity presented itself and wham, the door closed and left us with feelings such as frustration, anger, discouragement and humiliation. 
Perhaps the door closure was similar to some of mine, promising job opportunities that were given to someone else. I have had this happen several times and it leaves me feeling defeated, like what is wrong with me, why is God closing these doors. In many of these cases my peers have encouraged me, complimenting me, but yet the doors still closes. Why?
In other cases health reasons have closed doors and opportunities, which again can leave me discouraged and depressed with questions of why me Lord. Health in our case has prevented us from opportunities in travel, career and simple day to day activities.
Recently I have been reading a book about vocation and it reminded me that all too often we become focused on a singular opportunity and when it closes, we feel defeat, hopeless, anger and so on. We fail though to look at the doors it opened, while one opportunity door closed, many more remain open. So in a way that closed door is simply a traffic sign pointing us to many other doors of opportunity. Instead of that one lost opportunity, we still have all these other ones presenting them selves. That closed door is directing us to opportunity, albeit that is not easy to see at the time.
As Christians we believe that God is in control and guiding our lives and yet when we don't get what we want we are disappointed and question his ways. Recently I prayed about opportunities at work and both doors slammed in my face leaving me feeling rejected, depressed and questioning my abilities. Yet as I reflect, I had prayed that God would make it obvious to me, that he would place me in a position that would best honour him, use my God given skills and in a position that would provide a good work life balance (given our health). So in hind site I can reflect saying God has certainly guided and while I may have thought they were good opportunities, I need to trust his big picture perspective. The alternative is the human perspective, which wants to focus on self and keeps reminding me of how much better I would have been for the opportunity and so on. They are 2 very different perspectives, but only one provides peace, however it is not easy to rest in Gods hands trusting him. Not easy, but critically important for the sake of a healthy perspective. Let Go and Let God.


I Surrender - Hillsong Live


Proverbs 3:5-6New International Version (NIV)

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

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