Hallways

Confession: I just spent a ridiculous amount of time on Pinterest. I spend most of my time on there drooling over women's fashion. If I was rich I'd be the best dressed woman in Wisconsin, but I'm poor so I have to settle for drooling over the pictures posted on Pinterest and going to Target and trying to come up with less expensive ways to look that awesome. It never really turns out the way I want it to.

Anyway. This post isn't about Pinterest or women's fashion.

I came across this quote on there "Until God opens the next door for you, praise Him in the hallway."

It has me thinking about a lot of different things....Please forgive the upcoming excessive use of this hallway/door metaphor....

Here's the deal. I feel like I've been in the hallway for a really long time. I beginning to wonder if He knows He has left me out here. Um. Still here, Lord.

Earlier this year I was going through a particular trial, the Lord clearly closed the door to something I desperately wanted. And when I say desperately, I mean I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted it. I didn't think my desires were really all that out of line either, because what I wanted was something GOOD. The Lord had rather different plans and closed the door.

Cue the sad music.

For some time I sat outside that door and didn't want to budge. I'll admit that initially I was pounding at that door asking - no begging - God to open it for me. He didn't. After a while I stopped pounding, but I allowed myself to emotionally sit outside that dumb door.

I really didn't want to move. I figured as long as I wasn't begging God to give me what I wanted I was okay to just sit outside that door. Seriously, I did not want to move.

I won't go into the details of how the Lord, so lovingly and patiently helped me walk away from that door (oh how perfectly HE loves us), but eventually I did leave that spot. It was a matter of surrender. Of trusting His ways to be far better than my own. To trust HIM and HIS perfect knowledge of what is truly best for me, to accept His perfect will for me, and to let go of those desires I so desperately longed to hang on to.

Um. Cue the happy music, right? I said, happy music? Hmmmm....

I'm still in the hallway.

It is easy to have those, as Oswald Chambers calls them, "mountain top moments" with God. Where He reveals something INCREDIBLE and we stand at the top of a mountain with our arms stretched wide in surrender and praise to Him. But then we have to walk down that mountain...we have to return to our every day lives...we have to continue to walk the hallway He has put us in. This is when it becomes a bit more difficult for me.

I struggle with wanting the Lord's answers and direction instantly. I don't want to wait for Him to reveal these mysteries to me. And I'll admit, I still walk past that door and I have to surrender it all to the Lord again....

To be honest, I'm tired of this hallway. I'm really beginning to wonder if I get to move on from this place. And I wonder, when it comes time to walk through another door, will I have the courage to step through - I feel like the pattern these days is for those doors to close suddenly...

Am I the only one who has ever felt this way?

It isn't like I didn't already know, but the concept of praising Jesus in the hallway is a pretty incredible one. Is that really all that He wants from me while I wander this hallway? I do believe that He is up to something and in the mean time He wants me to learn to praise Him regardless of my circumstances.

I don't know where you find yourself on this journey - if you are in the hallway, knocking on a door, or  about to walk through a door into an amazing adventure. Regardless of where you are on this particular journey - He wants our praise every step of the way.

He is certainly worthy of it.

So here's to the hallway! May He give us the strength to lift our hands in praise to Him no matter how long He keeps us in this place. May He enable us to surrender in obedience to His perfect will for us. May He grant us the courage to knock on doors and walk through them when He asks us to.

Source: tumblr.com via Miye on Pinterest