12 Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me,
When was the last time you recognized the Lord opening a door of ministry for you? I know you are probably not a “full-time” minister. Your ministry might take the form of raising the next generation (mom), or stocking shelves with items too expensive for you to afford. But you have a ministry and the Lord wants to open more doors for you to share Jesus. But if you are not looking for those open doors, listening carefully for the whisper of His Spirit, you will walk right past the opportunity. And if you have ever walked through one of those doors, they are the best, most rewarding doors to walk through. But that would mean that you have to put your agenda on hold and be led by the Spirit. You would have to listen and trust. The clock does not run our lives. (I can’t believe I just wrote that.) We are supposed to be on God’s timetable, living moment by moment tuned in to His frequency, able to be mobilized for eternal purposes. But of course we got started late, so we are running late, so we don’t have time to listen, let alone stop. We have crowded eternity out of our lives by elevating the temporal, the temporary. Getting to soccer practice is more important than listening to the tears and frustrations of the small bundle of Jesus sitting in the back seat. We get driven by the events of life and we forget to live in the moment with Jesus. And thus we miss an opportunity to walk through a door and spend some moments with Him. He is in those tears of that youngster yearning to be understood. He is in the frustration of the spouse whose boss just doesn’t have a clue. He is in bill collector on the other end of the phone, and the burger-flipper, and the cashier, and the loan officer. Will you be Jesus to that one today?
The Arnold Journey 