It was the winter of 2003. My wife and I were chatting with a couple sitting near us before a Sunday afternoon lecture. The conversation shifted to their daughter who, with her family, was coming home from their missionary work in Cambodia for a furlough. Another missionary, the couple pointed out, had left the field permanently, leaving behind only one remaining missionary family to oversee all the various ministries.
“You,” they suddenly decided (pointing at us), “should spend your summer vacation helping them with those ministries in Cambodia.”
A door had just opened. Was this the voice of God? Or a distraction? How could we know the difference?
Too many people operate on the principle that an open door in their lives must be God’s will. If it were not, then why would God allow it to happen? To assume that every open door in our lives is one that we should pursue is about as prudent as closing our eyes, opening any physical door we come to, and bounding in impetuously. As the saying goes, “Some open doors lead to empty elevator shafts.”
Far worse than falling into an empty elevator shaft is walking through spiritually harmful open doors. We need to evaluate the open doors that come our way, and Proverbs 1:10-19 provides some practical advice for doing so.[i]
The first five verses (vv. 10-14) contain two if clauses in which the father is warning his son when to refuse certain invitations:
My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait to shed blood; let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause; let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole, like those who go down to the Pit; we shall find all kinds of precious possessions, we shall fill our houses with spoil; cast in your lot among us, let us all have one purse . . .”[ii]
When (“if”) the invitation comes from a sinner—one on a decided pathway of wrongdoing—then one should refuse it (v. 10).
When (“if”) the invitation is to wound and destroy the innocent—arguably, somebody who is righteous—the invitation should, once again, be refused (vv. 11-14). After all, such a goal is antithetical to God’s revealed will and is fueled by the unrighteous motive of greed (vv. 13-14).
The father’s second warning to his son explains why to refuse certain invitations (vv. 15-19):
My son, do not walk in the way with them, keep your foot from their path; for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. Surely, in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird; but they lie in wait for their own blood, They lurk secretly for their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its owners.
Those plotting the destruction of others in order to fill their own pockets are self-deceived as to whose destruction they are hurrying toward (v. 16). They lie in wait for their own blood (v. 18).
An animal is wiser than to fall into a trap he sees being made, but these sinners make their own trap. They teach us a lesson about greed: you may take your cut, but you will lose your soul in the process.
From these two fatherly warnings about when and why to refuse invitations, I have formulated four questions to use in assessing open doors:
(1) Who is inviting you?
The father opened his advice to his son with these words, “If sinners entice you . . .” (my emphasis). The character of the person extending the invitation is important.
Who, for example, is the person inviting you to attend a different church? Who is the person suggesting you move to his or her apartment or go into business with them? Do their Facebook pictures reveal that they are the people with whom you should become intimate friends? Their likes and dislikes indicate the direction their feet are pointed.
(2) Is your goal for pursuing the open door biblical?
When confronted with an open door, honestly ask yourself, “What is my real goal?” (Sometimes, our stated goal differs from our real goal.) Then, “What does God’s Word say about that goal?”
In addition, ask yourself “why” questions. Be brutal with yourself.
Why is she the “girl of your dreams”?
Why do you want that job?
Why are you hesitant to surrender your life to the Lord?
Why are you working long overtime hours? (Is it truly to provide for your family or is it to escape pressures at home?)
(3) Have you adequately considered the consequences?
The father in Proverbs warns the son of the consequences if he accepts the invitation to kill and steal (vv. 15-19). We also must think through the consequences of a given course of action.
Abraham’s nephew, Lot, chose to live near lush, green Sodom. From a human standpoint, his choice made sense: he had much cattle; cattle need grass. He did not, however, carefully think through the consequences of his decision. When Lot pitched his tent near Sodom, he did so in an area renowned for its wickedness (Genesis 13:13). Sodom’s grass fed his cattle, but its morals ate up his children.
(4) What are your spiritual “fathers” saying?
Twice, the father urges his son against accepting the sinners’ invitation. The father is not forbidding his son to join in with sinners because he hates his son. Rather, he does not want his son to start down a course of action that will eventually ruin him. Similarly, God does not put spiritual fathers in our lives to take away all our fun. They can often see our circumstances more clearly than we can. They have seen enough human shipwrecks to know when others are drifting toward the same dangerous shoals.
As my wife and I prayed about Cambodia, the opportunity checked all the right boxes. The invitation was extended by spiritually-minded people. Our spiritual leaders fully supported the idea. Our motives were right—to assist a missionary for the gospel’s sake. It fit what we believed to be the direction of our future ministry (to minister in Asia). Although we knew there could be some health consequences—and there were—we determined to trust God with those consequences. When facing the challenges of the ministry that summer, we did so knowing that we had walked through an open door that we had biblically assessed and ascertained to be in the path of duty. That confidence makes all the difference.[iii]
[i] Missionary Joel James deserves the credit for calling my attention to this passage’s relevancy for assessing open doors. See his booklet titled Biblical Decision-Making: Is It God’s Will to “Find” His Will?, pp. 24-26, accessible as of October 9, 2016, at http://gracefellowship.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/James_Joel-Decision-making.pdf. James makes some helpful observations, although I do not agree with all his conclusions.
[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the NKJV.
[iii] This series is adapted from the book Planning Your Life God's Way.