“When God closes a door, He opens a window, right?” the author said as if she had written an old phrase. After hearing her husband tell her how he missed an important job interview due to a car breakdown, this mother of six reminded herself of God’s good providence: if God says “no” to an opportunity, you can be sure He has another one lined up for you.
This is comforting.
However, like many other phrases that appear to be biblical, this phrase is actually not in the Bible. It’s not wrong for that reason, but we shouldn’t embrace similar sayings either because they bear some resemblance to the New Testament.
The world is full of religious clichés, and because they are short and catchy, they have a unique power to creep into our thinking and shape our spiritual intuition. We unwittingly start looking at the world and making decisions based on clever cliché lists instead of using God’s Word.
What’s wrong with it?
That they are sticky is not the problem. The Scriptures provide us with an abundance of short, wise, and serious sayings that God intends us to treasure in our hearts. The most obvious example is that of Proverbs, but the prophets and apostles also show Solomonic skill in expressing penetrating lines.
The problem is not the form; is the content. The question we must ask is: Does this statement, “when God closes a door, He opens a window,” accurately reflect what the Scriptures teach us about God’s providence in our lives?
The removal of obstacles is not necessarily a sign that God has ‘opened a door’ for us.
First of all, the expression “open doors” is found in the New Testament. When Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch, they attributed their recent missionary success to God “had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27). Paul told the Corinthians that a door for effective service had been opened for him in Ephesus (1 Cor. 16:9). He used the same language to describe an opportunity at Troas (2 Cor. 2:12) and asked the Colossians to pray that God would open a door for greater evangelistic opportunities.
Second, God is for us and carries out his providence with our specific good in mind (Rom. 8:28). So the idea behind that statement, to the extent that it acknowledges God’s willingness to show kindness to his children, is sound. Even though evil camps against us, God is working those tests for our benefit because he loves us.
Are open doors always good?
But that is not all that the Scriptures teach us. Even Paul’s statement about God working everything for our good (Rom. 8:28) can be taken as a guarantee that my recent car accident will result in a newer and better mid-size pickup truck. The main purpose of God’s providence is not to increase our material comfort. How the Scriptures define what is “good” and how they teach us to interpret the so-called “open doors”, is just as vital as memorizing popular Bible passages.
Contrary to what most people think, what we perceive as open doors may not indicate that we are walking in God’s will. For example, when God commanded Jonah to go preach in Nineveh and he flees to Tarshish, was his ability to locate a ship bound for Tarshish, without hindrance, an indication that God had opened a door for him? Nope.
Were the rich man’s fruitful land, great wealth, and large savings an indication that he was walking closely with God and should retire early? Not close. The removal of obstacles is not necessarily a sign that God has “opened a door” for us.
Are closed doors always bad?
Nor should we view opposition as an indication that God has closed a door. When Paul told the Corinthians that God had opened a door for effective service, he added, “there are also many adversaries” (1 Cor. 16:9). The fact that God opens a door can mean that problems await us when we cross the other side of the threshold. A loss of peace does not mean that a door has closed either. A door was opened for the ministry in Troas, but Paul’s soul was restless until he located Titus, so he left and headed for Macedonia (2 Cor. 2:12-13).
It is possible to experience divine opposition to our plans. When we move forward with pride and arrogance, life can be filled with unnecessary problems (James 4:6). Looking for an open window won’t do you any good until you’ve dealt with your pride.
Looking for an ‘open window’ won’t do you any good until you’ve dealt with your pride.
Laziness often introduces irritating contingencies into our daily lives, and thorn hedges are often seen as locked doors (Prov. 15:19). The lazy will continue to wait for easier circumstances when God simply waits for him to exercise his Spirit-empowered diligence and start opening a few windows himself.
Evaluating the doors and windows
So how do we discern closed doors and open windows? Instead of relying on what we perceive to be favorable circumstances and then calling those situations open doors or plan B windows, God calls us to align with his will as revealed in Scripture and judge our context accordingly.
It may be that what we judge to be a closed door is the normal opposition that comes from living in a fallen world; thorns and thistles afflict us all (only they afflict the sloth more acutely). A supposedly closed door may be the type of difficulty a soldier experiences when he enters enemy territory. Our plans for the ministry of the gospel will often be opposed by evil spiritual forces (Eph. 6:10-20). We should not expect otherwise.
It is also possible that God may, for a time, leave us in a room with the door firmly shut, without the coolness of the open window. Job was walking in the will of God, yet he was beset with a series of extreme tests. He searched anxiously for a window, but everything was hermetically sealed and nailed shut. When God closes a door, He can leave you in the dark for a season until He speaks to you from the whirlwind.
God may, for a while, leave us in a room with the door firmly shut, without the coolness of the open window.
“When God closes a door, He opens a window” is not the kind of colloquial wisdom on which to build your life. It is too simplistic to represent the richness of God’s providence, and it deceives us into thinking that life should consist of one favorable circumstance after another (or one unfavorable circumstance immediately followed by a favorable one).
Maybe God opened that window for you to have a place to dump pious-sounding clichés. Start with this one.
Originally posted on . Translated by Team Coalition.