Walk by Faith through the Open Door

by Crystal Mohrmann

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me about by the way’s bread for your journey is how often I am able to directly relate the week’s lesson to whatever is going on in my own life. I also always find that in the days after bread for your journey, I run into reaffirmations or reminders to remember the lesson.

This week, the most significant aspect of our discussion (for me) came from the idea that often, God will open the door for us, but that it is our responsibility to take the initiative to step through it, even when it looks like it could be dark inside, and trust that he’s going to be walking with us the whole time and carrying us when we can no longer walk ourselves.

Personally, I’ve had to walk into several dark places and I’ve more often than not, gone kicking and screaming. Because sometimes, I don’t think God gives us the choice. He gives us the extra push we need to get where we need to go when we can’t get there ourselves. However, most of the time, I think God does give us the choice. He opens the door to an opportunity and let’s us decide to walk by it or to walk through it. Right now, in my life and in my search to find the right place to pursue my passion, I am standing at one of God’s open doors. By opening this door, he’s sending me a lifeline, so I won’t drown in financial and other stresses, but from my perspective, what’s inside doesn’t look like what I thought or expected. And so I struggle with the same question I did a few weeks ago when I posted my last blog. Then, the question was do I let go of the rope? Now the question is do I walk through the door? Both involve blind trust, but I think if anyone is worthy of that trust, it’s God.

And so, I’ve been pondering that since last night’s bread for your journey and attempting to build enough courage to walk through a door that leads to a future that’s unknown. Interestingly enough, I decided to relax tonight by watching an old episode of the TV show, “Everwood.” Typical enough, right?

Well, do you remember those “reminders to remember” that I spoke about at the beginning of this post? Yeah, one of those popped up in a reference to none other than the flood story that Heidi talked about earlier this week on the blog and which was also one of the readings from last night. In the episode I just so happened to be watching (season 3, episode 18 if anyone is interested), one of the character’s says, “Maybe I’m like that person that didn’t realize that God sent him the boat or the helicopter…when the flood came…[m]aybe God did answer my prayer, but I just didn’t realize it because it didn’t come in the form I was expecting.”

I know, subtle right? If that wasn’t further encouragement to walk through the door, I’m not sure what else would be.

William Blake once wrote, “There are things that are known and things that are unknown. And in between, there are doors.”

We are, as humans, constantly treading the divide between what’s known and what’s unknown. We, as Christians, however have faith on our side…faith that although so much of our lives is unknown to us, there is nothing God does not already know about us and our journey. He opens doors for us on purpose. And sometimes, we need to step up and let our faith help us move through the door to the unknown even if it scares us, even if it doesn’t come in the form we were expecting.

Imagine this: You and your best friend have decided to take a road trip. You have no idea where you’re going, but your best friend assures you that he knows how to get there and knows what will be there when you arrive. Your friend doesn’t promise that you won’t get a flat tire or take a wrong turn by accident along the way, but he does promise that you’ll be together on the journey and will end up exactly where you’re supposed to be. Do you go with him or do you walk away from an incredible opportunity because you’re scared of what “might” happen along the way? I don’t know about you, but I trust my friends enough to know that if they say they’ll get me where I need to go, then they will. I believe God deserves that same trust.

So ask yourself: are you ready for a road trip with God?

If your answer is yes, then walk through the open door.

Following in Dustin’s footsteps, I’ll leave you with a song from Jeremy Camp called “Walk by Faith.”

"Let Love In"

By Crystal Mohrmann

This morning, Kari sent me a scripture to consider before posting this blog. For those of you interested in reading it before reading my thoughts, it is Ephesians 3:14-21.

When I first read the scripture Kari sent, my mind instantly wandered back to three amazing conversations I’ve had this week. Each of these three conversations were very different in topic, yet strikingly similar in nature. But I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

Before I do, I wanted to reflect on last week’s topic of “getting lost” in connection to what I’m going to write about in regards to being “grounded by Christ’s love.” I’ve spent this summer job hunting since graduating with my master’s degree in May and in that time, I’ve managed to thoroughly confuse myself about what it is I’m even looking for in a job. For so long, I’ve felt led to do something specific, but recently have felt that that vision for my life has been blurred. I thus have found myself feeling completely lost and ungrounded. And I thought that was a bad thing…until I read Dustin’s post on Friday, in which he quotes Thoreau and then proceeds to ponder whether being lost really is a bad thing. He and Thoreau both suggest it’s not and the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to agree because it gives us the opportunity to find ourselves again and usually, the person we find is better than the person we lost.

Being lost also provides us with a unique opportunity to wander for awhile and sometimes that leads us to new places, new people and new conversations, which brings me back to conversations I had over a period of four or five days towards the end of last week. All three of those conversations seemed to focus on connecting. The simple act of having a conversation is a way of connecting, but we also considered out loud what it means to connect and the ways that we can connect to other people. Some of the ways I connected with those I talked with last week were through similar losses, similar feelings of uncertainty in regards to the future as well as a similar love for God and how that love in itself connects people and things. In discussing those things, I was reminded that amidst the uncertainty, God’s love also provides us with faith.

To be more specific, one particular conversation I had, involved a discussion of life’s “coincidences” or as we called them, “God incidences.” It reminded me that I have yet to find myself in a time or place in life that I haven’t looked back on and known that I was meant to be there. This helped me so much in remembering that even in my present state of confusion and uncertainty, I am where I am meant to be. It also reminded me that trust and love coincide and how important it is to trust in God knowing he loves me and will lead me wherever I am meant to go.

After having those conversations, my thoughts led me to a story someone once told me about trusting God. It goes something like this: A man was rock climbing one day when he lost his grip and fell. As he was falling, he managed to grab the end of his rope. Well he clung to the rope with all of his strength, he prayed for God to save him because he couldn’t see the ground through the fog below. God answered him and said, “let go,” but the man, worried for his life, continued to hang on. God then said to the man, “I love you, trust me and let go.” Unconvinced, the man ignored God and continued to hang on. When the fog below him finally cleared, he saw that he was only a few feet off the ground and if he had let go of the rope earlier he would have dropped a short distance to safety.

And so from three conversations, I’m left with a few important questions to consider:

Am I willing to let go of my worries and fears and allow God’s love to ground me, as it would have the man who refused to trust in Him? Or am I going to cling to my own rope worrying that I might fall and get hurt?

We all know love and trust can be risky business, but so is hanging on to the end of a rope, when you can’t see the ground below. I challenge you this week to think more about what ropes you’re hanging onto and whether or not you trust God enough to let go so that “Christ [can] dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:17).

I hope you all have a wonderful week. While I have an important promise to keep to two little girls this Thursday night, I am going to try to be done early enough to be present at bread for your journey. If I’m not there, I look forward to reading the blog on Friday to see others thoughts about “being grounded by Christ’s love.”

-Crystal