When God closes one door He opens another but it can be hell in the hallway.   What good is failure and frustration?  Why has God closed every door to you?   Why has the Lord devised this divine interruption?  It can seem cruel and everything in you can rail against it.

HEAVEN IN THE HALLWAY

By Mario Murillo

When God closes one door He opens another but it can be hell in the hallway.   You are stuck in the hallway! What are you doing here?  What good is failure and frustration?  Why has God closed every door to you?   Why has the Lord devised this divine interruption?  It can seem cruel and everything in you can rail against it.

God will trap you in the hallway.  Jeremiah screamed, “He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; He has made my chain heavy.” -Lamentations 3: 7

Hannah’s hell looked like this: “And her rival also provoked her severely, to make her miserable, because the Lord had closed her womb”- 1 Samuel 1: 6. Why would a loving God intensify her shame and pain by closing her womb?

Elijah was sent to the wilderness only to have God cut off his water supply: “And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.” – 1 Kings 17:7 How does any of this make sense?

Paul had doors slammed in his face by the Holy Spirit: Acts 16: 6 “Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. 7 After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them.”

Not only this, Paul was put in prison at the very moment his physical presence in the churches was desperately needed. What gives?

The hallway seems like hell but if you calm your raging spirit and quell your fears and worries you can turn it into heaven.

The hallway is trying to save you.  Paul indeed had doors closed but then this happened in his hallway:  Acts 16: 8 So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. 9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ 10 Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.”

You have gotten good at doing things you are not supposed to be doing.  You are off course.  The hallway is waking you up to the fact that you are busy but not effective. The hallway is where you end the tyranny of unimportant things.

The hallway is trying to teach you once and for all that God is your source: 1 Kings 17:8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 9 ‘Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.’”

Elijah’s welfare was never in doubt.  Even in drought and famine he was safe.  God was trying to show him that whether it is brooks, ravens, or starving widows, God will take care of you.

This forced interruption serves to slay your deepest fears.  The world did not end. The bills got paid.  No threat prospered against you.  The hallway shows you God is your only source.  Outward sources of provision are mirages.  Your heart is fixed trusting in the Lord.

The Hallway deepens right desires and kills selfish motives.  God closes Hannah’s womb to deepen her desire for children.  In the hallway, she became willing to offer her first child to God.  That child became Samuel the prophet.  He saved Israel and is considered second only to Moses in Judaism.   But it gets way better: God remembered Hannah:  1 Samuel 2: 21 says, “And the Lord visited Hannah, so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile the child Samuel grew before the Lord.”  What an amazing outcome!  Not only does she get 5 more children—a prophet comes to save a nation.

The Hallway is a slingshot to unimagined momentum.  You seem immobilized and even like you are going backwards.  You are going backwards…for good reason!  Mighty elastic bands are being stretched to blast you forward.

Paul learned this lesson from his jail cell:  Philippians 1: 12 “But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, 13 so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ; 14 and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”

He writes triumphantly to Timothy from the hallway: “for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not chained. -2 Timothy 2:9

The Hallway is where you find out that just knowing God is everything.  I have—for reasons I will never know till I get to heaven—been privileged to know some of the most honored Christians in our lifetime.  At first, I notice the massive ministries they built.  Soon that fades and all you see is their intimate relationship with Jesus—their practical dependency on the Holy Spirit, and their passion to obey.

Jesus said, “John 15: 7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”  That is it!  These giants abide in Christ and everything else is secondary.  Until God frustrates your life and pulls the plug on your charade, you can’t know that.   Whatever you need to do will be done if you abide in Christ and His words abide in you.

These last days are horrible.  Within the church we have false doctrine, carnal leaders and a divided church.  Without, we have a world that is complicated and anti-Christian…it is a world that can blow up at any moment.  Don’t look for crisis to end but for God to work in you to make crisis lose its power to terrorize you.

The temptation to take matters into our own hands—to be obsessed with self-preservation and self-promotion—is greater than ever.  That is why there are hallways.

Daniel 11: 32 describes end time people.  It says, “Those who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with flattery; but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.”   Why are they strong?  Why do they do great exploits?  Because they know God.

Knowing God in the hallway—losing all your fear—being completely overtaken by Him can not only bring heaven in the hallway…you may not want to leave.

I leave you with these words from the book God Calling: “The world has always seen service for me to be activity.  Only those near to me have seen that a life apart, of prayer, may, and does so often, accomplish more that all of the service man can offer me. If man lived apart with Me and only went out to serve at My direct command My Spirit could operate more and accomplish truly mighty things.”