Automatic doors are a wonder, aren’t they? A camera eye senses when someone draws near and signals to the door mechanism to open and allow entrance. Then with a soft-spoken “whoosh,” the door closes.

“Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you,” the Bible tells us. The working out of that promise is sometimes like automatic doors, though. Not the kind with a door knob.

In His wisdom, God operates the automatic door from His unseen position high above the scene. No matter how many doors we’ve pounded on, how many doorbells we’ve rung, how many times we’ve thumped a shoulder against an immoveable wooden door, we can’t seem to find entrance to our dreams.

But the Lord–knowing better than we do where we need to go and which dreams are worth pursuing–waits and watches. When we draw close to the “right” one, He nods and the door opens automatically before us.

For safety reasons, at our local airport, one set of half-circle curved automatic doors open to a person exiting the plane and heading for baggage claim. That set is sealed again before the next set in front of the traveler opens.

That, too, is reminiscent of the way the Lord often works with His children. For their safety, He opens a set of doors, then asks His follower to wait until that door closes behind, sealing him off from the past, before opening the next set of doors to the future.

For writers: Although we’re responsible to keep knocking on doors in our writing pursuits, we can be assured that when we near the “right” door, from God’s perspective, it will open before us.

For readers: Do you feel that every door you try (in relationships, career, even spiritually) seems locked and barred? Are you frustrated that nothing seems to fall into place for you? If you allow Him control of your life, the doors WILL open. And it won’t be because of how brilliant you are or how you muscled the door open, but because the God who loves you is watching. When you get close to the right door, you won’t have to push against it. It will open wide to allow you to walk through.

I long ago graduated from to-do lists written on snippets of paper or on sticky notes. I’m using whiteboards now. Color-coordinated. My life is a glorious tangle of responsibilities and delights, challenges and heart-thumping joys. I write and produce a daily radio broadcast, two monthly columns (one for an ezine, another for a newspaper), create and submit and sometimes publish magazine articles, teach at writers’ conferences, love on my grandbabies, serve on the worship team at church, watch for ways to bless my kids and my husband, do freelance editing, care for my mom who can see the end from here, write novels, prepare and edit online devotionals, and serve as the president of the 1900-member American Christian Fiction Writers corporation.

Whew. Let me catch my breath!

What makes it all work is that my responsibilities dovetail. The God I serve is a wise economist. He wastes nothing. A devotional idea becomes a radio script which holds a word of encouragement for an online friend who recommends an editing project that puts me in touch with a new magazine resource I hadn’t discovered yet which gives me another idea for a devotional…

I realize I’m wired in a way that would cause wrinkles in Thomas Edison’s spine. But I survive because it’s all entwined.

And I survive life itself because mine is entwined with the Lord’s. “In Him I live and move and have my being,” is the way the Bible describes it.

It is immensely comforting to know that if I hurt, He feels it. If I dance, He leads. Any compassion I feel is a reflection of His own. When I love well, He smiles. When I sin, we’re both sickened. If I’m rocked by a turn of events, He…Rocks. I’m traveling life as if He and I are partners in a three-legged race.

And we do just fine…when I let Him lead.

For writers: Everything we experience along the path to publication is entwined with God’s divine will for our writing. Even the disappointments. They’re inexorably linked to the victories and advances (both meanings of that word). Entwined and entangled are tango partners, though. And the Word of God is clear that we can become easily entangled and fall out of step with His will for our writing careers.

For readers: Linking arms with the Lord infuses us with strength and stamina as we face our daily challenges, even those as simple as unruly to-do lists. May it renew your courage to see how intertwined are the many responsibilities you’ve been handed or assigned. Is there a common thread? Is it encouragement? Serving? Wisdom? Creativity? Worship? Children? Whatever that common thread, consider that it may offer hope that your life isn’t just busy. It is a delicately woven entwining of your gifts and opportunities with His power and selfless love. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to take another look at my whiteboards of to-do lists and trace His Hand upon it all.

Ponder the shining moments, holding onto them like stored battery power for the dark days. Get a firm grip on the hope that what you see is just the middle, not the end of the story, when God is involved.