I have been a active cyclist since my early teens. Racing or competition were never my goal in riding, it was just for the pleasure of the ride. In my hometown there were a few bicycle shops, but in my teens there was only one that I enjoyed going too. The guys that ran it were not much older then me, and they never complained when I just came by to look. I felt like I was more then a customer there, I was a buddy.

I did not work my freshman year in college. I wanted to get a good start academically, but I knew that at the end of my freshman year I would need a part time job. I mentioned that one day when I was in the shop. I was not asking for job, I was just updating them on my life. One of the managers immediately chimed in that they were looking to hire a bicycle assembler in a month or so. He added the pay was not great, but if I was interested the job was mine. I told him I was, and that I would come see him in a month.

The month passed and I returned. After a few minutes of looking around, I mentioned to the manager that I was still interested in the job. He said that as cool, but it would be another month. No problem for me since I was still in the fall semester of my freshman year, and was not really looking for anything before summer.

Next month was the same story, as was the month after that. After about four months of next month, next month, next month I just stopped checking back and went on with my life. At the time I was really crushed. I had always wanted to work in a bike shop. The thought of being able to spend all day with bikes and people that loved bikes really excited me.

After a few days, I got over my disappointment and began looking for a job. I was headed for a computer related field so I talked to the computer department at my university. They had a opening in the fall semester. After a few interviews, the job was mine. Now the rub, there were about six months between when I got the job and when I could start. It was time to find a summer job, so off on another job search I went.

I was very fortunate to find a job quickly. A large office store was about finished and they hired me immediately. Now I had a summer job and a better job coming in the fall. My life was wonderful.

Early on at the office supply store, the management found out that I was a computer science major. To them, that meant I could type. Typing was not a skill many of the hourly employees had., so that meant I was destined to work in the store’s office machine department. In addition, they assumed that since I was a computer science major I would be able to explain all the features and electronic gadgets that we sold. To me, that meant a summer of demonstrating typewriters, copiers, fax machines, micro cassette recorders, and shredders.

There was only one problem, typing was the only six weeks D I made in high school. Luckily, I had worked very hard and brought it up to a C by the end of the semester. I just could not master going to the number keys without looking at my hands. In programming, I rarely typed sentences or common words, so I had not improved significantly in my typing skills since high school. I had a major problem here, and there only one solution. I explained my lack of typing skill to the manger. I had no success in changing his mind. He told me to just practice when it was slow in the store. His approach worked and in a few weeks I was fairly proficient at typing “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs”, but I still stayed away from the number keys.

Toward the end of summer I called the computer science department to be sure they were still going to have a job for me in the fall. They still did, and all was good for me to start at the beginning of the semester. I continued typing when it was slow, and I planned to enjoy the rest of my time at the office supply store.

One slow Saturday morning, I was standing in my office machine aisle when a couple approached me. A father and mother were looking for a simple typewriter for their high school daughter. I ask a few questions about how many papers she typed, and about what features they wanted the machine to have. Their needs were very basic, and I took them to a lower end machine. After a few minutes, they decided to buy one level higher then the basic. I quickly got the box for them, found them a extra pack of ribbons, and ask them if there was anything else they needed. The man said he owned a business and wanted to know about any word processors that we offered.

This was when computers were around, but were not everyday devices yet. At the time the office supply store did not even sell computers. We offered typewriters, and simplified computers that provided word processing features with a few limited computer features like a basic spreadsheet and a basic database program. I walked him from the low end machines to the high end machines, home of the word processors.

After a few minutes he as me a question about a technical component of the word processor. I told him the answer quickly and he ask how I knew that. I explained that I was a computer science major, and that computers and technology interested me. He ask me if I would like to discuss working for him.

Bam, my world was changed instantly. It turned out that he owned a company that represented various industrial computer hardware, software, and process monitoring hardware. My customer service skills and technical knowledge had impressed him. Based on those facts he thought I might make a good addition to his company. We set a time to meet the next day, and the next day I was hired on as a part time office assistant for his company. I actually took a cut in pay from the office supply company to take the job. It was a great opportunity, and worth the pay cut. I was so happy with the opportunity that I called the computer science department the next day and told them I would not be taking the job in the fall. I burned a bridge just for the potential opportunity this company offered.

Over the next three years I worked part time during the school year, and full time in the summer for this company. By the time I graduated my duties and the company had grown. We had moved from a representative company to a actual manufacturer. At the time of graduation, I was the company’s project manager, purchasing manager, quality control supervisor, literature and catalog developer, and I supervised the assembly of all the companies computer systems. Obviously, we were a small and flexible company.

This job provide me with more real world computer experience then ever would have gotten at the computer science department, and it taught me a lot of skills that I still use today in my career. This great learning experience, and flexible work schedule while in school, resulted from the bike shop not hiring me. A closed door was followed by a open door, the office supply store, which lead to a great opportunity, the project managers job upon graduation. My heart was in the job at the bike shop, and then moved to the job with the computer science department, neither of which offered the opportunity or experience that I actually got while working for the computer company.

Many times we are the same way with God. We assume that a closed door is a great loss, instead of seeing it as new opportunity to actually find what God wants for us. We set our heart on things that are not really what we need. God has to close the door to keep us from following our heart. The bible tells us the nature of the human heart in Jeremiah 17, verse 9 - “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” and in Proverbs 18 verse12 - “Before his downfall a man's heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.” Our heart will lead us astray. We must tame our heart’s desires before we can follow Christ’s desires.

We are promised success, if we follow after Christ, specifically that is told to us in Proverbs 16, verse 3 - Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. In Chapter 21 of the book of Proverbs, the Bible tells us what human wisdom will bring us. It also tells us the only way a action or plan will succeed. Proverbs 21:30 There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the LORD.

God also tells us to trust Him in what will succeed and what will not. He will allow us to succeed at those things He has chosen for us. His plan for how we should serve is clearly spelled out in Ecclesiastes 11:6 - Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. Simply put, He tells us to constantly work at what He has for us, and He will prosper what needs to succeed. We are not wise enough to know what will succeed and what will not.

As a Christian, there is a lifetime of success ahead of you if you follow after Christ. Past experiences and current closed doors are God’s way of directing your current path, and guiding your future successes. Closed doors can lead to better opportunities then ever existed if the doors of our hearts desires had remained open. Most people have set their hearts on things that later proved to be fraudulent or flawed. Few among us married the first person our heart set upon, but the mate that we married was far superior to anything we could have imagined before. The jobs we hold today, or the position we have in the community, are probably not the same as what we dreamed of two, five or ten years ago, however where we are is better for us then what we done on our own.

God’s loving nature is not always found in the yes’s, but is often found in the no’s. God wants the best for you, and rarely are we wise enough to know what is best for ourselves. Our nature leads to destruction and death, not happiness and success. God desires to give us a life of what is best, not what is in our heart. We are fortunate for His love, not oppressed by it.

If you are not following God today, then you will not succeed. You may have a measure of success financially, or maybe career success, or maybe entertainment wise, or in some other form or fashion. These successes are flawed though. They hold no eternal significance. Real success is not measured by your checkbook or your house size, it is measured by the impact your are having for God. All human desires lead to vain pursuits, and leads you to become the enemy of God. Living this ways makes you a sinner. In the book of Romans, in chapter 6, in the first part of verse 23 we are told what the wages or result of sin are - Romans 6:23a - For the wages of sin is death,

God is clear about what occurs in the lives of those that follow Him, He is also clear about the lives of those the reject Him. His truths on these matters can be found in chapter 3 of Leviticus, verses 3 thru 45. -

LEV 26:3 " `If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.

LEV 26:6 " `I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.

LEV 26:9 " `I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year's harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.

LEV 26:14 " `But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.

LEV 26:18 " `If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

LEV 26:21 " `If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.

LEV 26:23 " `If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword upon you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.

LEV 26:27 " `If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. 31 I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. 32 I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.

LEV 26:36 " `As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. 37 They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. 39 Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their fathers' sins they will waste away.

LEV 26:40 " `But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers--their treachery against me and their hostility toward me, 41 which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies--then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. 44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the LORD their God. 45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the LORD.' "

The great news is that in the remainder of Romans chapter 6, verse 23 is - but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Today is the day to enjoy the open doors God has for you, and no longer follow after the closed doors in your life. Closed doors guide us to the open doors we never saw and to great successes in God. Rejoice in God and all that He has for you, and not in the things of your heart, for your heart will lead you to failure, while God and His open doors will lead your to greater successes then you would ever imagine.

Closed Door Specialist - 2002-2003