Closed doors. Genesis 7:6-16 NLT

Yesterday at Sunday school for the three year olds we learned about Noah and the flood. Next time I teach it will be on the Tower of Babel. I wonder if that's where I'll be in Genesis in two weeks? 

One thing I learned this past week, even though I've read this many times before, God shut the door, it says so in verse 16. How could I miss that all those other times? 

How many times has God shut the door for you? I can think of several times in my life God has shut the door. Which one should I share? The job I thought I had to have and didn't get? The home I really wanted but couldn't buy? The vacation I dreamed about and had to cancel the week before? 

Each and every time, something better came about. In the mist of our disappointment, we can't see beyond that day, that situation, that emergency. Sometimes we have to wait years for His plan to unfold. But it does, and I thank God for protecting me from some of my bad choices. 

What do you do when God closes a door for you? Do you pout? Get angry? Try to force it open? Next time, thank God for His plan and wait for it to unfold. 

Genesis 7:6-16 NLT 

6 Noah was 600 years old when the flood covered the earth.  7 He went on board the boat to escape the flood—he and his wife and his sons and their wives.  8 With them were all the various kinds of animals—those approved for eating and for sacrifice and those that were not—along with all the birds and the small animals that scurry along the ground.  9 They entered the boat in pairs, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah.  10 After seven days, the waters of the flood came and covered the earth.  

11 When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky.  12 The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights.  

13 That very day Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and their wives.  14 With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal—domestic and wild, large and small—along with birds of every kind.  15 Two by two they came into the boat, representing every living thing that breathes.  16 A male and female of each kind entered, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD closed the door behind them.  

Blessings, Cecilia