God’s Open Doors: Why Trusting His Plan Beats Forcing Your Own

Editor’s note – Most of us know the frustration of pushing against a door that won’t open, certain it must be the right one simply because we’ve already decided so. The author walks through one ordinary week – a resale sale, an approval email, and a video that stopped her cold – and relearns a lesson worth repeating: God’s open doors rarely need to be forced. We’re running her reflection because that confusion rarely announces itself, and it helps to hear someone name it plainly.

Today started out pretty normally.

Wednesday is usually my day to clean the house, so that’s what I was doing this morning. After I finished, I checked my notifications and saw that I’d gotten another sale on Vinted. This time, someone had purchased a sweater.

I packaged it up, made my trip to the post office, and came home ready to move on to the next part of my day. Then I checked my email.

I had been waiting to hear whether I’d been approved for a new social media freelance project. I’d already gone through the application and onboarding process, and today I received the news that I’d officially been approved for the project.

I was excited.

But it also made me stop and think about something God has been teaching me throughout this year.

The more I’m learning to let go of my own plans, the more I’m seeing things fall into place in ways I couldn’t have orchestrated myself.

How Many Doors Have I Tried to Force Open?

Yesterday, I saw an animated video on Instagram that really caught my attention.

A woman was standing at a closed door, pulling and yanking on the doorknob, desperately trying to get it open. She grew frustrated and upset because she couldn’t understand why the door wouldn’t open, even though she had been praying about it.

Then the animated depiction of Jesus got her attention. He pointed behind her. There was another door already open.

The message was simple: she had become so consumed with trying to force open the door she wanted that she hadn’t noticed the one God had already opened for her.

That hit me. I’ve done that.

Not literally, of course, but figuratively, I’ve yanked on plenty of doorknobs in my life. I had an idea of what should happen, and when it didn’t happen quickly enough, I tried harder. I pushed. I worried. I tried to figure out what else I could do to make my plan work.

And all that time, maybe I wasn’t asking the most important question:

God, is this even the door You want me to walk through?

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. [Proverbs 3:5-6]

I’m learning to take those words more seriously. I don’t want God merely to help me open the door I’ve already chosen. I want Him to direct me toward the right door.

Editor’s note – Proverbs 3:5-6 is often quoted as a general call to faith, but here it does something more pointed: it checks our certainty about which door is actually God’s. That’s a harder prayer, because it asks us to admit we might be wrong about which one He wants opened.

There’s a Different Kind of Peace When You Stop Forcing Things

Seeing that video yesterday and then receiving the project approval today reinforced something in my heart.

For the last few months, I’ve been intentionally praying that God would align the right people, places, and things in our lives for His glory. I’ve also been praying about doors.

Lord, open the doors I’m supposed to walk through, and close the ones I’m not.

That’s not always an easy prayer.

If I’m asking God to close the wrong doors, I also have to be willing to accept it when one closes. I can’t ask Him for direction and then become angry because His direction is different from mine.

Psalm 37:5 says, “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this.”

I’m finding so much peace in learning to do that. It doesn’t mean everything suddenly becomes easy.

There can still be work involved after God opens a door. This new freelance opportunity required an application process, hours of onboarding, learning new information, and preparing myself for the work ahead.

An open door doesn’t mean there’s no effort required. But I’ve noticed a difference between working hard at something I have peace about and desperately trying to force something that doesn’t seem to be moving.

I’ve experienced that second feeling before. There’s stress. There’s anxiety. There’s that nagging feeling deep inside that maybe I’m pushing so hard because I’m trying to make my will happen rather than surrendering to God’s.

That’s not where I want to live anymore.

Editor’s note – Notice that peace here isn’t the absence of work; the author still completed an application and hours of onboarding after the door opened. The difference isn’t effort versus ease – it’s whether the work flows from surrender or from anxious control.

His Best Really Is Better Than Mine

My word for this year is intentional, and I’m seeing that word show up in so many areas of my life.

I want to be intentional about my work.

I want to be intentional about my decisions.

But more than anything, I want to be intentional about seeking God before I move.

I’m learning not to rush quite as quickly into every opportunity that appears in front of me. I’m learning to pray first and ask God whether something actually belongs in my life. I’m also learning to trust Him when something doesn’t work out.

Maybe that door wasn’t mine.

Maybe He’s protecting me from something I can’t see.

Maybe there’s another door already opening, and I’m so busy staring at the closed one that I haven’t noticed it yet.

That’s why I keep coming back to surrender. Minute by minute. Moment by moment. Day by day.

God, what is my next step?

I don’t need to understand the entire path. I don’t need every door to be open at once. I just need to remain close enough to God that when He directs me toward the next one, I’m willing to follow.

Today, I’m thankful for another Vinted sale. I’m thankful for this new freelance project. I’m thankful for new opportunities and for seeing different pieces begin to fall into place.

But I’m even more thankful for what God is teaching me through it all. I don’t have to force His plan. I don’t have to yank on every closed door until I’m exhausted. I can pray, work, listen, and trust.

And when a door stays closed, maybe instead of immediately asking, How can I get this open? I need to turn around and ask:

Lord, is there another door You’re trying to show me?

What are you focusing on today? Are you asking God to direct your path every step of the way, or could you be trying to force open a door He’s asking you to release?

A Word from the Editor
Scripture never promises we’ll see the whole hallway, only the next door. Proverbs 16:9 says it plainly: we may plan our course, but the Lord establishes our steps. The prayer worth praying isn’t asking Him to open the one we’ve chosen, but asking which one is His – and then loosening our grip on the handle.

Editor Comment: You're pointing to something every believer must learn eventually: real trust means releasing our grip on which door should open, and resting in God's promise to make the path straight. Weaving your own week – the sale, the approval email, the video that stopped you – into that lesson shows readers what surrender actually looks like, not just what it means.

This article appeared on Medium and is reprinted with modifications and by permission.