When the Door Opens

I’ve been thinking about something lately.

There are moments in life where something shifts, and I don’t always recognize it right away.

It’s not loud.
It’s not dramatic.

But something starts to move.

A door cracks open. A breeze picks up for just a moment. An idea gets shared.

And if I’m not paying attention, I can miss it.

That’s what I keep coming back to in Ezra 6.

The temple finally gets finished.

After delays.
After resistance.
After all the reasons it shouldn’t have happened.

And then there’s this simple line:

“The LORD had turned the heart of the king.” (Ezra 6:22)

That’s it.

No buildup.
No explanation.

Just a quiet reminder that God was working in places no one could see.

I think that’s the part I struggle with.

I want to see it clearly.
I want to know for sure:

“Is this God?”
“Is this the right time?”
“Is this really happening?”

But most of the time, it doesn’t come like that.

It comes subtly—through a conversation, an opportunity, or a nudge I can’t quite explain.

And here’s the tension I feel in that:

It’s possible to recognize that something is happening and still hesitate. That reality scares me.

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The people in Ezra didn’t get it right the first time.

They had started… and then they stopped.

They hesitated when things got hard.
They stepped back when opposition came.

And it took time—and a word from the Lord—to bring them back to the work.

But when God stirred their hearts again, they stepped in.

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I wonder how many moments I’ve missed like that.

Moments where God was opening something…
and I stayed where I was because it felt easier.
Or safer.
Or just more familiar.

I have to imagine I’m not the only one who has felt that.

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I’ve even found myself thinking about that as a father.

As my kids have gotten older, I’ve had moments where I look back and wonder if I recognized everything I should have or if there were times I missed what God was doing right in front of me.

It wasn't because I didn’t care, but because I was busy, or focused on the wrong things, or just didn’t see it clearly at the time.

And not just as a dad—but in ministry too.

These are the moments where God may have been opening something, and I either hesitated or moved past it too quickly.

I don’t sit in that as regret as much as I do awareness because it reminds me that these moments matter—and they don’t always look like what I expect.

And maybe that’s part of the grace in all of this. Grace doesn’t always come easy for me, you know.

But maybe, just maybe, the grace in this is that God continues to open doors even after the ones I didn’t recognize.

Maybe I missed that moment, and maybe God, in His grace, opens another.

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Here lies my point of curiosity today. 

What do I do when God opens something in front of me?

Do I wait until it’s obvious?

Do I wait until it’s comfortable?

Or do I step in—even if I don’t have everything figured out?

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I don’t think those moments come around all the time. But when they do,they matter.

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I've been sitting here on the porch pondering these things.  Trying to pay a little more attention. Trying not to rush past what might matter.

Maybe that’s all this is for now - just slowing down long enough to notice what might be opening right in front of me.

Just a quiet moment on the rocker, a cold water in hand, watching the dogs run and play. Oh, yes… the dogs.

That’s for another time.