great question. I was just talking about this very topic last night with a fellow. I wonder what exactly it looked like in Acts 16:6-7. We know that Paul wasn’t afraid of encountering difficulty or suffering. We also know that Paul felt these two doors were genuinely and completely closed. “forbidden by the Holy Spirit” and “the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them”.

Two phrases that just don’t let us know how they knew. But they did know. And they went a different direction. Twice. and then Paul got the vision of the man from Macedonia. Just fascinating.

I love that Paul had a plan to go and was in fact going when he was prevented from going further. He wasn’t just sitting on his hands in Antioch waiting for God to show him what to do. He was out on the road with intention to go to a specific place when God intervened to take him a different direction. So Paul made a different plan and began to execute it when God intervened again.

Paul was action oriented but sensitive to and obedient to the leading of the Spirit. What a great model for us. We need to be working and making plans ever sensitive to the leading of the Spirit and willing to submit to the leading when and if it ever intervenes.

Certainly difficulty and/or hardship and/or suffering are not in and of themselves evidence of the Spirit’s intervention, but what is? that is the mystery of this passage.

Keith

thank you for this post. I appreciate those thoughts because I find this so much in myself as I face making difficult decisions… I get so tempted to think that when it is truly difficult, that must be evidence of God’s not approving of the situation. I could easily justify not growing and not being challenged to grow in the same ways I would be had I moved into those difficult situations.

I am dealing with some of those very things now as I decide what to pursue for my future… and I decided NOT to withdraw this time purely because I realized that if I am calling clients into choosing hard things and facing difficulties for the sake of the gospel and their own growth in it, then I can’t run away from challenges facing me.

When it seems like God is closing a door in my life, it usually means God is opening a window for me – sure, its going to take a little more creativity to safely pass through that window, but maybe its on the other side of the room. I still end up where I’m needed.

I’m also not sure that God ever just closes a door he doesn’t want us to pass through. I think he just gently guides us towards another door. When we get closer to God’s plan, that first door from our plan just isn’t appealing.

Writing a paper on this very thing now – when is it God’s will or are we supposed to just push thru closed doors. I think we’ll never get an answer. There are seasons that the door is slightly ajar and he tempts us to push harder. Other times even tho the door is shut he’ll have us push just to make our backs stronger. I don’t get it yet, but I think there’s a good comparison to the seasons of life to the bull and bear economies – and knowing when to go all in and when to chill and pray.

ciao – W