Read Acts 16:6–10

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“We can make our plans,but the Lord determines our steps.” (Proverbs 16:9 NLT)

Some phrases sound incredibly wise when we first hear them. Some even sound biblical—so biblical, in fact, that we may repeat them for years without ever stopping to ask whether the Bible actually says them. “God helps those who help themselves.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “God will never give you more than you can handle.” That last one, for instance, is often attributed to 1 Corinthians 10:13, though Paul is speaking there specifically about temptation, not promising that faithful people will never encounter circumstances beyond their ability to bear. Each saying contains enough familiarity, common sense, or religious language to sound like something Scripture must surely teach. But, if we’d actually weigh any saying against Scripture, we’d discover that things are usually more complicated.

One such phrase is, “When God closes a door, God opens a window.”

I understand what it is trying to say. God is not limited by the path we expected to take. An ending does not necessarily mean there is nothing ahead. But, honestly, life—and Scripture—are rarely quite as tidy as the saying makes them sound.

Sometimes a door closes and, for a while, there is no window. There is simply a closed door. A relationship ends. An opportunity disappears. A plan falls apart. A ministry changes. Something we were certain would happen does not happen. We stand there wondering whether we failed, misunderstood God, or somehow missed the path we were supposed to take.

Paul knew something about closed doors. In Acts 16, Paul and his companions are traveling through Asia Minor doing exactly what we would expect missionaries to do: preaching the gospel. Yet Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit prevented them from preaching in the province of Asia. They then tried to enter Bithynia, and again the Spirit did not allow them to go.

That is worth noticing because Paul was not trying to do something obviously selfish, foolish, or sinful. He was trying to do something good, faithful, and entirely consistent with his calling. And still, the door closed.

Only later, after arriving in Troas, does Paul receive the vision calling him toward Macedonia. The routes that had closed eventually redirected the journey. We can therefore say, at least in this story, that God really did close doors.

But we need to be careful here, because this passage can become spiritually dangerous if we turn it into a formula. Acts specifically tells us that the Spirit prevented Paul from taking those routes. Scripture identifies these particular closed doors as divine redirection.

Not every closed door comes with that explanation.

People close doors. Institutions close doors. Fear closes doors. Prejudice closes doors. Injustice closes doors. Sometimes we close doors ourselves through choices we have made. And sometimes we simply do not know why a door closed.

Friends, that distinction matters. If someone is rejected because of racism, sexism, ableism, poverty, identity, prejudice, or another person’s misuse of power, we should be very cautious about telling them, “God closed that door.”

Sometimes human beings slam doors God never asked them to touch.

Calling every painful outcome “God’s will” can become a convenient way of baptizing injustice and relieving people or institutions of responsibility for the harm they cause. Something happened, therefore God wanted it to happen, is not a theology Scripture requires us to believe. In fact, Jesus directly challenges that kind of thinking. When the disciples encounter a man who had been blind from birth, they immediately search for a spiritual cause: Who sinned, this man or his parents? Jesus rejects the premise that the man’s condition can simply be explained as punishment for somebody’s sin (John 9:1–3). Likewise, when people tell Jesus about Galileans killed by Pilate, and Jesus recalls eighteen people killed when the tower of Siloam fell, he refuses the assumption that those who suffered must somehow have deserved their fate more than others (Luke 13:1–5).

So perhaps the spiritual question is not simply, “Why did God close this door?” Perhaps we need to ask, “What kind of closure am I facing, and what does faithfulness require of me now?”

The answer will not always be the same. Sometimes faithfulness means releasing the door. Sometimes it means waiting. Sometimes it means admitting that our own choices helped close it and seeking repentance or repair. Sometimes it means respecting a boundary another person has every right to establish. And sometimes faithfulness means refusing to accept that a door closed by prejudice, fear, or injustice somehow carries God’s approval.

Discernment matters.

There is another uncomfortable possibility too. Sometimes we keep pushing against a closed door because we have already decided what faithfulness is supposed to look like. We knock harder, explain ourselves again, work harder, and try another angle. Perseverance can be holy. Scripture certainly teaches persistence (Luke 18:1–8; Galatians 6:9). But persistence and faithfulness are not always the same thing.

At some point we may have to ask whether we are persevering because God is calling us forward, or forcing a door because we cannot imagine God leading us somewhere else.

Paul keeps moving. Asia does not open, so the journey continues. Bithynia does not open, so the journey continues. Eventually Paul reaches Troas, and then comes Macedonia. Paul is not given an explanation for every route that failed. He is given enough direction for the next step.

Perhaps that is often how God works. We would prefer a map explaining every closure, every detour, every disappointment, and every ending. Sometimes we receive only another step.

Churches face this too. Congregations can spend enormous energy trying to reopen doors belonging to another season: ministries that no longer serve the community, structures that cannot be sustained, traditions that have become ends in themselves, or assumptions about what church is supposed to look like because that is what it looked like before. Ecclesiastes reminds us that there are seasons for both keeping and letting go (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8). There are times when faithfulness means grieving what was and allowing something to end.

But churches and other institutions should carry equal humility about the doors they themselves close. No committee, leader, institution, denomination, or majority should confuse its own decision automatically with God’s decision.

We are not God simply because we possess the keys.

Acts 16 gives us no easy formula for determining which doors to push against and which to release. It gives us something harder: discernment. Paul did not spend the rest of his journey standing outside Bithynia demanding that the door reopen. He kept listening. He kept moving. Eventually another direction appeared.

A closed door does not always mean we failed. It may not even tell us who closed it. But when the way ahead changes, faithfulness asks us to listen carefully before forcing the handle—and to trust that God’s ability to begin something new is not limited to the path we expected to take.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
A closed door calls for discernment before we decide what—or who—closed it.

PRAYER
God of wisdom, give us discernment when the way ahead closes. Keep us from calling injustice your will, from forcing doors you are asking us to release, and from confusing our own authority with yours. Give us courage to resist what must be resisted, humility to release what must be released, and faith to follow wherever you lead next. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).