Doors

What doors in your life need to be opened or closed?

I’ve never shied away from DIY projects. My most recent project is a sliding barn door. It seemed easy enough—mount the rail to the wall and add the hardware to the door.

But, like most DIY projects, it’s never that easy.

The wall my foreman—A.K.A. my wife—wants it on is a foundation wall with foam blocks filled with concrete. Experience has taught me that the hardware supplied with certain projects is never quite right. No different here.

So, two trips to Menards later, I got what I thought were the correct attachment pieces.

Nope.

Do we really need a door to this room in our home? I doubt it! It’s just another door we need to go through. A door that has become complicated. A door that is causing stress I really don’t need.

But yet, Momma wants it to be put up.

Of course, this got me thinking about the doors in our lives.

The doors that open easily.

Sometimes life gives us opportunities that seem almost effortless. The timing is right. The opportunity fits. We recognize it immediately.

But even an easy door requires a decision. Will we walk through it?

There are people who spend so much time waiting for the “perfect” opportunity that they overlook the door that is already standing open.

Maybe the question isn't, “Is this an easy door?”

Maybe it's, “Is this an opportunity I'm afraid to take?”

Sometimes we hesitate because we're comfortable where we are. The open door isn't the problem. Our willingness to walk through it is.

The doors that require work.

Some doors don't open easily.

We have to push. We have to learn something. We have to develop new skills. We may have to ask for help, change our approach, or try again after we fail.

Sometimes we assume, “If this is this difficult, maybe I'm not supposed to do it.”

But difficulty doesn't always mean we've chosen the wrong door.

Sometimes difficulty means growth is waiting on the other side.

So, instead of asking, “Why is this so hard?” maybe we should ask:

“Is this a difficult door—or is this a door that is helping me grow?”

Difficulty isn't always a warning sign. Sometimes it's an invitation to stretch.

The doors we shouldn't walk through.

Not every opportunity is a good opportunity.

Not every relationship deserves access to us. Not every career path aligns with who we're becoming. Not every decision that looks attractive will take us somewhere healthy.

And sometimes we have to recognize that having the ability to open a door doesn't mean we should walk through it.

This is where discernment matters. We aren't simply trying to find a door. We're trying to find the right door. That requires us to slow down and look beyond what is immediately in front of us.

As you go into this week ask yourself:

What door of life must you walk through today? 

What are the things you must get access to before entering the next door of life? 

How do you decide what doors you should go through and what ones to avoid?  

Sometimes we walk through a door and discover it wasn't what we expected. Maybe we made the wrong decision. Maybe we took a path that didn't work. Maybe we entered a season that became difficult. But that doesn't mean our story is over. There are doors behind us, doors beside us, and doors we haven't discovered yet.

One decision doesn't have to define the rest of our lives. We can pause. We can reassess. We can redirect. We can choose another door. Growth isn't always about having everything figured out. Sometimes growth is simply recognizing where you are and deciding what you will do next.

What's on the other side?

Before deciding which door to walk through, we need to think beyond the opportunity itself. This is where our values, priorities, relationships, purpose, and the person we're becoming matter.

We will never know exactly what is behind every door.

But we can become more intentional about the doors we choose to open—and the doors we choose to close.

At Steve Bucks Coaching, I help people slow down, examine the opportunity in front of them, understand themselves more clearly, consider the consequences, and make intentional decisions about their next step.

P.S. The Foreman, A.K.A. my wife, got her barn door!

~STEVE