The Room

Over the past week or so, one particular image has been bouncing around in my head. This idea originated at a recital I went to in which I drifted off for a moment and in my daze of course decided to become a poet (I've had a dream of publishing a self-mocking poem for several years now). For some reason all I could think about was a room, a room with four walls, four doors and windows on either side of each door, everything in the room was white. Outside the windows in each direction is the rest of the world, and what I see is big cities, green hillsides, rocky mountains, unending oceans and all other sorts of natural and manmade things, intriguing and inviting landscapes. At first I just thought it could be a comic way of depicting the frustrations of decision making, but the more I thought of it the more I realized it really does a better job of illustrating my life than any other image that comes to mind.

People use the expression "Whenever God closes a door, he opens a window" to describe pretty much every situation, and however true that may be, I think it is more true to say that "Whenever God closes a door, He'll open it again when you're ready in His eyes." I spend a whole lot of time looking out the windows and seeing what looks to BE the Adventure of a lifetime, but realizing that what I see is not even a fraction of what He KNOWS . Sometimes I'll see an open door from across the room and run full-forced at it only to have it Close before I'm halfway there. Of course, being the stubborn man  that I am, a closed door does not always stop me from trying to get out of it. More often than not, I run headlong into a solidly shut door and only get a load of embarrassment and a massive headache to show for it. The open door always promises good things, but never fulfills. The image that kept running through my head was of me frantically running from door to door in my cubic room getting shut out (or in) at every single one.

Before I go on, I should address this fact; NO ONE WANTS TO READ ABOUT A GUY WHO'S TRAPPED IN A ROOM. At least not if theres nothing else interesting in said room, and there definitely is not And that's the reason for the title of this blog. From this point on in my life, I'm leaving the room. I'm not trying to leave through a door that opens and closes at random times anymore, rather I'm asking God to lead me out of this room. I'm coming to the realization that God does not close doors just for the sake of closing doors, God is just waiting for me to trust fully in Him. Before, I thought that once I got myself out of the room He would show me his power, now I realize that his power becomes apparent when I let Him lead me into his kingdom.

What I intend to write about for whoever wants to read is my adventure with God. Adventure because that's exactly what it is and also partially because that has been my favorite word / subject since I was four. I realize I probably should have started writing about these things a while ago before I left for the journey of a lifetime and as my friends put it "Traipsed around Asia for three months," but this is how I do things, and I guarantee you not one of the adventures I had in the . last four months was bigger than any of the ones that I'm about to have The word adventure to me inherently involves risk; there is no adventure if there is no risk involved, you can not sit inside a room and have an adventure at the same time * PLAYING ZELDA IS AN EXCEPTION *. Adventure is about facing the things you fear the most, fighting the giants and trusting God even if past experience advises hiding in a hole. Adventure is about taking leaps and stepping out on faith regardless of apparent consequences or past experiences, when God says go, I intend to go. And that's what got me out of The Room, God said go and I went and He is leading me. Now words can not even describe my excitement for every moment of this adventure that God is leading me on. I know that like all good stories this adventure is going to have plenty of ups and downs and I am GOING to have a lot of times where it seems more like a death march than an adventure. I 'm going to follow paths that seem to be right but will end up wrong, I'm going to fall down a few times, I'm probably going to get distracted by earthly pursuits a whole lot. The story in the end will show , The Room is behind me and God is before me.

I'm not going back to how things were.