Monday, May 12, 2008

Back Doors

I have a difficult time in scenarios where I don't have enough to do.  I'm the sort of person who prefers to feel occupied for as much time as humanly possible.  But my job, at the moment, is just the type of scenario I hate.  Too little to do.  Too much time to do it.
 
And nothing extra to do, though I've hunted.
 
It results in admonitions to go back to my computer and look busy.
 
Funny how deceptive appearances can be.  It's quite easy to look one thing and be quite another.  Anyway, I discovered a major roadblock to my success in looking busy today: the Internet filter.
 
We changed filters recently and the settings have still not quite resolved themselves to the IT department's satisfaction, but this morning it blocked my gmail account and I got irked.
 
Until I remembered something my dad and several other people have told me about such instances: there is always a back door.  A way to where you want that is not blocked because of the way the information is--or isn't--identified.

Google Reader wasn't blocked.  So I logged into Reader, looked through some excellent material . . . and followed the link straight into my gmail account without a hitch.
 
I've been thinking about it ever since, and this is why: in my life, I think I get far too preoccupied when the front door is not functional.  I get so used to attempting one entrance into the building, metaphorically speaking, that I forget that there are other points of entry--namely, Heavenly Father pretty much always provides a back door.
 
As a matter of fact, I think one of my biggest problems, if I continue discussing my metaphorical building, is that the front door is my preferred method of entry.  It's how I want to get to where I want to be.  And sometimes Heavenly Father wants me to arrive at the end I'm wishing for--but He has a different door He wants me to go through.
 
Sometimes . . . well, sometimes I'm at the wrong building entirely and I'm too stubborn to recognize it.
 
When it comes to recent events, I wonder if I haven't been exerting all of my energies trying to open the wrong door.  Because sometimes I expend an awful lot of effort.  I'm the sort of person who both literally and figuratively attacks the door with everything in my open-the-door arsenal--crowbar included.
 
Which has got to make an omniscient being--who knows the back door is not only there, it's unlocked and it's open--get a kick out of me sometimes.
 
I think I've been banging at the wrong door.
 
So I'm going to look for the one that is actually open.

1 comment:

Katria said...

Reminds me of something one of my friends said once, "Sometimes we're too busy banging our heads on locked doors to notice the Lord's ever quiet whisper to try the front window."