Copyright 2014 Theresa Harvard Johnson
We hear about the blessings of open doors on a pretty consistent basis in the midst of our faith. Who wouldn’t want to hear this? After all, open doors are good right? Well they are good when they are opened at our Father’s direction.
But guess what, closed doors can be blessings as well. Holy Spirit often says to me: “Theresa, remember to thank God for closed doors as well as those He has opened.” This morning, I ran across an announcement that reminded me of this truth and my spirit leapt for your joy. I was inspired to remind you of the same.
Our human nature, however, would like for us to view closed doors as setbacks, deep, dark places of disappointment, discouragement, delay and despair.Our spirit man desires that we see that closed doors, just like open doors, can represent times of healing, times of waiting, times of deliverance, times learning, seasons of preparation, times of divine protection and more. Closed doors are also associated with divine timing, dominion, the fruit of patience and supernatural access to the specific road the Lord has designed for your purpose and destiny.
Christ’s life, for example, was full of examples of closed doors by way of rejection, conspiracy, evil intent, doors closed by God or even doors He closed himself to set proper boundaries. One of the best known examples of this is in James 7:2-6 when Christ is pressured by His brothers to become famous and well known in His own strength. The discourse is as follows in the Complete Jewish Bible:
“But the festival of Sukkot in Y’hudah was near; so his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go into Y’hudah, so that your talmidim can see the miracles you do; for no one who wants to become known acts in secret. If you’re doing these things, show yourself to the world! (His brothers spoke this way because they had not put their trust in him.) Yeshua said to them, “My time has not yet come; but for you, any time is right.”
Wow. Christ could have succumb to the pressure around Him to “be something or to do something.” Instead, He shut the door on this “opportunity” and said something like this to them: “No! This door is still closed for me right now! Look at yourselves, you really don’t care where you walk or what you do.”
The beauty in the midst of this is that Christ understood that all opened and closed doors in His life – no matter what they looked like to men observing from afar – were strategically aligned to propel His righteous life. This is the posture He chose to take!
It is also the place we are being challenged to walk through in this hour. The fulfillment of our destiny and purpose rests on how we view and respond not only to the open doors that come our way, but to the doors that are closed.
Doors are portals – and none of them come to us by accident! Every Godly door in our lives lead to a blessed, strategic outcome! Every ungodly door has a bitter root, with an assignment to frustrate and kill our purposes in God.
God has given every one of his sons the authority to open and close doors in their OWN lives and within their OWN sphere of influence in the Kingdom. Holy Spirit has also been given keys to open and close doors in our lives. Another aspect of Holy Spirit’s infinite dominion is to block access or close doors to specific areas in our lives or around us for the purpose of keeping the sons of God within their respective metrons or measures of authority in heaven and in earth – for our own protection.
Let’s take a closer look at our authority in opening and closing doors, and then Holy Spirit or Ruach Hakodesh’s infinite dominion.
Isaiah 22:20-23 CJB: “When that day comes, I will summon my servant Elyakim the son of Hilkiyahu. I will dress him in your robe, gird him with your sash of office, and invest him with your authority. He will be a father to the people living in Yerushalayim and to the house of Y’hudah. I will place the key of David’s house on his shoulder; no one will shut what he opens; no one will open what he shuts. I will fasten him firmly in place like a peg, so that he will become a seat of honor for his clan.”
This passage is filled with imagery concerning opening and closing doors. Obviously, one king is being displaced and another king is being raised up in this chapter. A scribe with an arrogant takeover spirit is being removed from a place of self-appointed authority. Great and bitter turmoil is in the midst. Yet, God’s servant Elyakim is walking through an open door in the midst of all of this chaos, and promised the keys of David by which he will be given power to open doors and the power to CLOSE doors by God, and the Lord tells him he will honor those decisions. We are in some ways like Elyakim. We have also been given the keys to the Kingdom as well – in which we can exercise the unlocking (opening) and locking (closing) of doors as sons of God.
Mark 16:19 refers to this as binding and loosing in popular English Bible translations, or prohibiting and not prohibiting. In Revelations 3:8 CJB the scripture says: “Here is the message of HaKadosh, the True One (the Spirit of God), the one who has the key of David, who, if he opens something, no one else can shut it, and if he closes something, no one else can open it.”
People of God, we have a measure of authority in opening and closing doors in our lives. I know you already know this, but sometimes WE NEED TO BE REMINDED. Best of all, the doors our God and the doors we close at His leading are ALWAYS for our good. Over the past five years, my life has changed drastically – not only inwardly as it relates to maturation in Father, but also outwardly concerning the administration of my life and the ministry entrusted to me.
Tremendous doors of opportunity have opened to me for personal healing, ministry relationships, opportunities to prosper personally as well as in ministry initiatives; and at the same time, massive doors have closed – some of which God forced shut because I didn’t want to let go, others in their timing and some of which I closed out of obedience and haven’t looked back. Please understand that these doors were not necessarily negative or based on anything ungodly. I am also not necessarily talking about relationships, although sometimes that is a part of it. Most of these doors were closed due to the shifting of seasons, spiritual climate changes and/or new directives concerning my life in Christ. In other words, God used closed doors to CHANGE MY DIRECTION!
It is not always obvious that we are heading the wrong way people of God! If you take a minute to look around you, you will see so many people DOING but very few BEING. And for many, they will count the opening and closing of doors by “their works” instead of by their “maturation.” Don’t let this be you! So many things that we do look like God and are distrations, time wasters… destiny stealers. Closed doors can very well be catalysts to exposing this fruitless work.
When we are truly walking with God, he will interrupt those pathways that will bring great harm. And when He does, we must not try to force our way back in or force our way through! Pray for the wisdom to know when to keep the door closed.When I look back at my life, I can see that many doors were closed for my own protection.
Isaiah 26:20 CJB, “Come, my people, enter your rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past.”
People of God, if you find yourself in places of despair because doors have closed or because YOU have had to close some doors in your life at God’s direction – don’t become discouraged! Just know that those “closed doors” are GOD’S opportunities. Today, I want to encourage you NOT TO CURSE your Godly closed doors, but to thank God for them.
