“We had our church fellowship group over last night,” Stan said one morning.
“How was that?” I asked.
“It was great as usual,” he replied, “but we did something we had not done before. It was a lot of fun.”
“What’s that?”
“The leader asked each one of us to tell a story about the funniest spiritual lesson we could recall. And one of the people had a story about how the Lord used a cat to teach a lesson about patience and discipleship.”
“A cat? What was that all about?”
“They had a motor home and a cat. When they would go traveling, they would take the cat with them. Apparently it was a pretty big cat. The man telling the story said that he would drive the motor home all day, take the time to set up everything for the night, and get into bed really tired, only to have the cat crash through the door into the bedroom.”
“Crash through the door?”
“Yeah,” Stan replied. “Apparently the door to the bedroom was just one of those bi-fold things that wasn’t very secure. The cat would run at the door, crash it open, get up on the bed, and brother the guy trying to sleep.”
“That’s quite a picture,” I said, “but what’s the spiritual lesson?”
“The man said that as he thought about what was going on with the cat, the door, and how to fix the situation, the Holy Spirt spoke up and said, ‘Just like you do sometimes!’ He said that the Holy Spirit made it clear to him that too often he would crash through doors in his life without waiting for God to open them.”
Continuing, Stan added, “It was a lesson in patiently waiting for God to open the doors He wants open. Also a lesson for the third step in discipleship of following, not seeking to lead by crashing away on our own.”
“It seems,” I replied, “that there are spiritual lessons all over the place.”
“If we will only look!”
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Bible verses to consider:
But the fruit of the Spirit is . . . patience. Galatians 5:22.
Regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation. 2 Peter 3:16.
If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Matthew 16:24.
Not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Matthew 26:39.
Prayer: Thank you, Father, that you provide the way for me to follow you. You know all too well my self-focused tendency to want to run ahead of you and to crash through doors you have not opened. Please help me in waiting for you to open the doors you want opened. Help me to see those opened doors and to go through them, following you, in accordance with your will. Thank you that I can and do come before you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Think on this: We all can have a tendency to run ahead of God and crash through doors that He has not opened. Have you ever done that? If so, what was the result? Did it turn out the way you thought it would? Could it have been better to wait patiently for God to do His will in waiting for Him to open the doors He wanted to open? How does a person manifest that sort of patience?
Waiting for the Train 