Devotionals by Dr. M. Craig Barnes

I have set before you an open door and no one is able to shut it. -- Revelation 3:8

It is impossible to look at a new year without wondering what it holds for you. Of course, much of it is still a mystery, but I can tell you one thing that will certainly be waiting in the new year. According to St. John's Revelation, your future includes an open door.

All the visions about the future that are found in the book of Revelation are meant to help us know how to live in the present. So the open door is an eternal symbol God has placed before us in the day we have. It claims that we are not so stuck as we may feel, because we can always make changes. So when we say we have no options, what we really mean is that we are afraid to pay the cost that change always requires. But that's a different matter. If we really wanted to make a change we could, because the door is wide open.

The purpose of the open door is not to make you walk through it, but to confront you with your freedom. Your best opportunity may be to stay in the relationships, job, and other circumstances where you are now conducting life. But your ability to enjoy that life is directly related to your realization that you chose it. You could have chosen differently. Next year you will face those choices again, which means that what you're really choosing is to have a happy New Year.

-- Craig Barnes