{"id":7353,"date":"2021-11-27T10:09:12","date_gmt":"2021-11-27T00:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=7353"},"modified":"2021-11-27T10:09:13","modified_gmt":"2021-11-27T00:09:13","slug":"when-every-door-seems-closed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/when-every-door-seems-closed\/","title":{"rendered":"When Every Door Seems Closed"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

When Every Door Seems Closed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated from a sermon by Fr Daoud Lamei<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Frequently I get messages from a lot of people with the same problem. People that feel like they have reached a dead end. People that feel like there is no way out. People that feel like they have been crying out to God for years and years and He just won\u2019t listen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where is God? Why hasn\u2019t my problem been solved? My hope is lost. I can\u2019t see the light at the end of tunnel. What did I do wrong? I wouldn\u2019t mind if He told me my mistake, just as long as I can fix it. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, we truly feel that the door is completely shut. This is a difficult feeling to overcome. We lock ourselves up in an internal prison of anxiety and fear. We become easily agitated and feel like we have the weight of the world on our shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the time it is because we are waiting for a specific\nanswer from God. We beg for relief, but we find nothing. I pray that He helps\nme to forget my problem, yet it remains. I pray for what I desire, and I hear\nnothing in return. I pray something different, and still no answer. I become\nfed up, I have had enough, and still, no answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of times, I am not even encouraged by others. I tell\nthem my problems and they respond perplexed and say, \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong with you?\nEveryone is living the same as you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the outside, there is no more struggle visible than the usual, but the battle lies within. The inner may be full of despair but outwardly, people\u2019s problems appear similar. No one can find good help, no one can get married, no one can find a good job, you hear this and suddenly, you have no right to complain about your own problems. Naturally, you can\u2019t complain because of those that may look down on you like you have some kind of heightened sense of self worse. Others can make you feel like you are the one that is compounding your own problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is an opportunity to bring yourself back down to earth. The most difficult thing in the spiritual life is the ego. When my thoughts are centred around me<\/em> and my<\/em> needs. The ego presents a huge hurdle that we cannot jump over easily. If money is a problem this can be easily overcome in comparison. Even lust seems like an easy hurdle compared to the ego. The ego is our most difficult hurdle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we see a door close before us, the first thing that this will trigger is our ego. For any self-confidence, any pride, any cause for boasting, this is all destroyed by the door that is shut in our face. We become grounded once more, and the ego breaks. At this point, we have an opportunity to attain the first blessing we forgot would gain us the Kingdom; blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one that is poor in Spirit is the one that goes to God, completely void of self, a beggar before their Master, the lowest person in the world. We all pray, but the number of times we pray and we cry from the depth of our hearts, we could count on one hand. Our prayers during these times most likely came from a door that was shut before us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you feel like your hands are tied, or a problem that seems like there is no solution, the only thing you can do is beg and cry for help \u2013 to cry for help like Jonah from the belly of the whale when there was nowhere to escape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what God wants \u2013 for these are the prayers that will change our hearts and minds. When you get to the point where you cry out from the depth of your heart. God wants this part of our hearts. Every night we pray – Out of depths I have cried to You, O\u2019Lord! Hear my prayers<\/em> (Ps 130:1; Twelfth hour Agpia prayers)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What depths are we attaining on a nightly basis? On most nights,\nthis doesn\u2019t even come from the depth of our mouths! What is there for God to\nhear, when there is barely a sound coming from your mouth, let alone a yearning\ncry. We say words, but our hears are elsewhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christ appeared from the shut doors. He didn\u2019t open the doors. We must remember this when we pray. He appears suddenly and asks, \u201ccan you tell Me why you\u2019re upset? What is on your mind?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you start thinking about why you\u2019re upset, you think\nthat you\u2019re being silly. You think to yourself, \u201cwhy am I being like this? God\nloves me and heaven is waiting for me. The Holy Spirit is in me. I have been\nforgiven. Why am I being like this? Every solution has a problem. The promises\nhave never let me down. The doors weren\u2019t shut before, but I was the one that\nshut the doors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you see Christ standing before you, smiling brightly saying, \u201cPeace be with you.\u201d<\/em> He means wake up. The situation is simple. After every closed comes an open door. Sometimes we think that the door is closed forever, but a more glorious door opens out of nowhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The door was closed before David for almost fifteen years, he\nwas a fugitive, treated like a wild animal in the wilderness. When the doors\nopened, he became the greatest king in the history of Israel. He was likened to\nChrist and is known forever as the grandfather from whose lineage Christ came. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonah thought the end was near for him when he cried out\nfrom the belly of the whale, but not only was he saved from the belly of the\nwhale but a whole city received salvation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doors that are shut must eventually open. The stories we read from the Bible are the same stories that we live. There is no problem that does not have a solution. There is no crisis that will not end. There is no pain without relief. There is no death without resurrection. There are no other options \u2013 a door must open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you remember the tough times, the times of struggle,\nthe times when you thought you had no way out, you find that this is the path to\nbig rewards that were unconceived in your mind before. These were the days that\ntaught you patience. These were the days that taught you how to pray. These\nwere the times that you were granted wisdom and learnt the meaning of Love for\nGod and your neighbours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Every Door Seems Closed Translated from a sermon by Fr Daoud Lamei Frequently I get messages from a lot of people with the same problem. People that feel like they have reached a dead end. People that feel like there is no way out. People that feel like they have been crying out to … Continue reading “When Every Door Seems Closed”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7355,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353\/revisions\/7355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}