Sitting on my desk is a daily calendar. Across the top, it reads, “MENTAL FLOSS: AMAZING FACTS.” While it would be a stretch to call any of the tidbits of information “amazing,” they are usually at least mildly entertaining.
For instance, before authoring the wildly popular Goosebumps series of children’s books, author R. L. Stine wrote the jokes found inside Bazooka bubble gum wrappers. Another day revealed that a “small swarm” of eighty million desert locusts found across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East can consume as much food as 35,000 people in a day. I found the following offering particularly interesting. While almost all of us drink our coffee today, some of the first African tribes to consume coffee did so by grinding the berries, mixing them with animal fat, and rolling them into small edible energy balls.
The bitterness of eating a door is better than the consistent consumption of crow that often comes from gaining entrance into the wrong opportunities.
One entry from last week has been swirling in my head for the last few days. It reads, “The Greek expression I ate a door is a metaphor for being rejected. If you’re turned down for a job or denied entry to a popular club, one might say a door was slammed in your face – or in other words, ‘you ate a door.’ The phrase is commonly used to describe getting passed over for something that was important to you.”
Surely all of us can appreciate the “fact” communicated, but none of us would call it “amazing.” It is one of the uncomfortable and unavoidable facts of life. All of us, myself included, will eat more than a few doors throughout our lifetimes. The experience often leaves us feeling sick with disappointment, resentment, frustration, and bitterness. But, the bitterness of eating a door is better than the consistent consumption of crow that often comes from gaining entrance into the wrong opportunities. It is hard to see in the moment, though.
This was certainly the case for the apostle Paul and his team. Acts 16 tells us that Paul and Co. were “kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the Word in the province of Asia.” We don’t know exactly what happened that prevented them from entering the area, but we know that it was not what they wanted. What is of particular interest in Acts 16, however, is their response. After they “ate the door,” they didn’t give up and go home. They didn’t shout at the sky in frustration over God not giving them what they wanted. Instead, they redirected their attention and efforts to the next door that opened to them, ultimately spreading the gospel to new areas and bringing about unimagined opportunities and success.
Eating one door is often simply a means God is using to redirect us to another that will be better for us and for which we are better suited and which will be better for us.
Alexander Graham Bell once said, “When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.” We have all “ate the door” at some point in the past, and we will undoubtedly have another helping in the future. It is not a desirable experience, but it need not be the end of our efforts. In fact, eating one door is often simply a means God is using to redirect us to another that will be better for us and for which we are better suited and which will be better for us. We must learn to eat the door with gratitude, understanding that another door will open leading to new, unimagined opportunities.
