TRY WALKING THROUGH THE OTHER DOOR!

Ronald Bainbridge
Sep 7, 2023
5 min read

Updated: Jan 22

Friends, the mission of Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES is to encourage and empower people who are seeking a deeper meaning for their troubled life, or for those who are already believers in Jesus Christ, to recognise, experience, and celebrate their oneness with all others who know Jesus as Saviour and Lord, regardless of denomination, church fellowship, or historic tradition.

Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES

https://abl-alb.wixsite.com/discoverabetterlife/about

(Stories of: Real People, Real Events, Real Places)

And are dedicated to HELPING

PEOPLE FIND PEACE and HOPE

Through entering into a personal

Relationship with Jesus Christ, Who has declared,

“In this world you will have trouble,

But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

(John 16:33)

(John 10:10; 14:6)

Today's Message of Encouragement

TRY WALKING

THROUGH THE OTHER DOOR!

Friend, perhaps you’ve read Dr A.J. Cronin’s novel: “Hatter’s Castle?” However, I wonder if you know how he became a writer. Well, when he was a doctor in London, on the verge of his greatest success, his health broke. He was told to take a year’s rest and that he might never again be fit to stand the wear and tear of the medical profession. What a blow!

Dr Cronin loved his work! From a small and humble beginning, he had achieved his life’s objective, and now it must be abandoned. The door to a medical career was slammed in his face. He voiced bitterness and resentment toward all his friends. Life had turned sour!

Then, while in exile in the West Highlands, time hung heavy on Dr Cronin’s hands. Hours felt like years; the door to success had been shut. Suddenly, one day, an impulse came to him to write, and he began the novel “Hatter’s Castle.” When it was finished, it was parcelled up and sent to the publisher. To his glad surprise, it was accepted. Out of all reason, another door had opened to him. A whole new writing career lay before him as he walked through “the other door.”

Friend, as I reflect on what happened to Dr Cronin, I think it would be true to say that many of us, when faced with sudden disappointment, misfortune, or defeat, raise a cry of anger and resentment against God and life. When we miss a promotion or are deprived of good health, it is hard to understand. Sometimes, we cry, “Why did this happen to me?” or “Why did God allow this to come into my life?”

As strange as it might seem, disappointments and trouble are often the instruments with which we are fashioned for better and bigger things to come. The road is not always straight or an easy corridor; it is not always smooth or unhampered. It would help if you never gave up because life never takes away from us without giving something better in its place.

Our paths are often like a maze of passages through which we must seek, search, and find our way. Sometimes we find our way and then are confused—now a clear light to go, then a red light to stop. At one time, we find ourselves on a freeway and again in a blind alley.

However, if we exercise faith, God will always open another door. Perhaps it is not the door we thought was the best, but another door that He knows is the best, one that will take us to a greater and more useful destination. I know this to be true because out of my deepest hurts have come my greatest strengths.

“Stand up to your obstacles and do something

About them! You will find that they haven’t

Half the strength you think they have.”

Norman Vincent Peale

Robert Louis Stevenson said it well: “Give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, patient in all changes of life, and down to the gates of death loyal and loving to one another.”

Friend, if the door you hoped for has closed, why not try the other one, it just might become the pathway that could lead to the greatest fulfillment of your dreams. In essence, as someone once wrote: “All life is making choices, and choices make destiny. I become what I choose. The law of choice is the same as the law of faith. What I take takes me.”

Are you a person who readily embraces hope, or are you afraid, and worry has duped you into believing that hope will only lead to disappointment?

When life crashes around you, and everything you have wanted most seems to be dissolving, does your hope and faith in God keep you going? Or are you paralysed by fear and afraid to walk through other doors? If so, Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES invite you to write for a Free booklet titled: “Faith: Is it reasonable?”

Faith! It’s tremendously important, and the message in this booklet will help you develop a strong faith and the courage to live it. Faith, biblically defined, is trust in God and the payment He made for our sins when Jesus died on the cross! The apostle Paul said, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith” (Ephesians 2:8).

Friend, Grace is a blessing we have not earned—in this case, the gift of salvation that Jesus purchased for us—through our obedience to Jesus Christ, just as the apostle Paul said, “For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ’s, then are you Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:26-29).