"The Lord said to [Moses], ‘Enough from you! Never speak to me of this matter again! Go up to the top of Pisgah and look around you to the west, to the north, to the south, and to the east. Look well, for you shall not cross over this Jordan." - Deuteronomy 3:26-27
As we get older, we often find ourselves aware of the narrowing of possibilities for our future. It's not popular to say, but it's true: as time goes by, so do certain possibilities for what we’re going to accomplish in our life. We make choices that actively close doors that aren't likely to open again; other doors just sort of slowly swing shut on their own when we aren't looking. Another way to look at it, though, is as a deepening. The universe of possible yeses shrinks for each of us as time goes on . . . but that just makes time for us to dwell in the yeses we do have more fully. Now that it's too late for you to become President, you can spend more time in the garden, become your town's rose expert. Now that becoming a doctor and curing cancer is off the table, you can spend more time with your kids, really find out what makes them tick. Your real world yeses may be more mundane than your old dreamy no's, but that doesn't mean they don't contain worlds of challenge and delight. It is not given to you to do everything. It is not even given to you to do most things. But the things that have been given to you? Do them like you're parting the Red Sea. Do them like you're bringing water from a rock to save a people. Do them like they've been handed to you from a column of fire and smoke on a mountaintop. Because there's a fair chance they have been.
Prayer: God, let me walk through the doors still open to me with grace and faithfulness. And if any have been shut to me unjustly or against your will, give me the power to kick them down. Amen.
