Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.
~Napoleon Hill
Sunday dinner in the South is as sacred a sanctuary as church itself. So to reject an invitation to the feasting festivities is next to turning your back on the Lord himself. So when a good friend of mine invited to me dinner after church, I had no option but to attend.
Her father is a retired minister. So like most preachers most everything spoken even at Sunday dinner is on the surface one thing but underneath a neatly wrapped life lessons if you peel the context back like skin on the potatoes.
On this particular Sunday in the South, I heard the story of a locked door. The story was more or less of a door that perpetually seemed to be unlocked despite his instance that he locked the door upon leaving.
In his deep, smooth Elvis style voice, he recounted going to the door, turning the lock, checking the handle. Returning the next day just to find the door unlocked. So the following night he turned the lock, checked the handle, turned out the lights. Next morning, found the door unlocked.
Finally, he decided he was going to solve the mystery of the rebellious door.
So he turned the lock, checked the handle and heard a “pop” as the door unlocked. Somewhere over a second serving of BBQ the man called Papa said “sometimes you just got to jiggle the handle.”
While it may have been a simple story of a stubborn door, the meaning was not missed.
There are so many seasons we pray for God to “open doors” for us. We plead and pray and ask God to open the door. Maybe God has all along presented us with closed doors and just asked us to “jiggle the handle”.
Discouragement often comes disguised in a door that is closed. Dreams are dashed at the doorway of closed off opportunities. Callings cease at the appearance of a sealed off passageway.
Which makes me think there are moments God sits on this throne and face palms thinking “I put you in front of the door just jiggle the handle”.
God lays out a sampling of door handle jiggling moments in scripture. Moses had to put the staff in the sea to see the waters part. The priests put their toes in the water before the Jordan swung open. Countless miracles were completed by Jesus when the one receiving the work of grace put a little work in.
Sometimes God puts us in front of the door and asks us to “jiggle the handle”. The job application does not fill itself out. But an opportunity may open with a phone call. Even if the book does magically get filled with words, a publisher will never see it until you pitch it. Sometimes your big break is opened with a simple jiggle of a handle you presumed was locked.
Opportunity does not always knock. And there are days we don’t create the door. Some days God presents an opportunity in the form of a door that seems locked. In faith you check the handle to see if it is the door God has presented you to walk through.
As was the wisdom handed to me over some Southern slaw “sometimes you just got to jiggle the handle.”
What opportunity door handle do you need to jiggle?
