10/13/2026
“Lord, will You ever open the door again? Or am I going to spend the rest of my life in this hallway?”
I wonder if you have ever whispered those words through tears.
Not because you have stopped believing in God.
But because you have been standing in the same place for so long that you have begun to wonder if this is where your story ends.
You have watched doors open for everyone around you.
You have celebrated their answered prayers while quietly carrying your own unanswered ones.
You have watched people walk into the very things you have spent years begging God for, and you have tried so desperately to rejoice with them while swallowing the ache of another day spent waiting.
And you are grateful.
You really are.
But sometimes, when the celebrations are over and the house grows quiet, you find yourself sitting on the floor of that hallway, asking the Lord if He has forgotten that you are still there.
Because the hallway is a lonely place.
It is where you can remember what was behind you, but cannot see what is ahead of you.
It is where the familiar has disappeared, but the promised has not yet appeared.
It is where you learn that sometimes the hardest part of trusting God is not following Him through an open door.
It is continuing to trust Him when every door in front of you remains shut.
And perhaps you have been here so long that you have stopped reaching for the doorknob.
Perhaps you have grown tired of getting your hopes up.
Tired of believing this will be the month.
This will be the year.
This will be the prayer He finally answers.
Only to find yourself standing before another closed door, holding another disappointment, trying to convince your trembling heart that God is still good.
I wish I could tell you exactly when the door will open.
I wish I could tell you that tomorrow morning you will hear the hinges move, that the prayers you have prayed for years will suddenly become the testimony you have longed to tell.
But I cannot.
And I will not pretend to know the timing of a God whose wisdom reaches farther than my understanding.
But I can tell you that a closed door has never meant that God has closed His heart toward you.
His silence is not proof of His absence.
His waiting is not proof of His unwillingness to love you.
And the fact that your life does not look the way you thought it would by now does not mean that He has abandoned the pen.
Oh, how often we measure the goodness of God by whether or not the door has opened.
We call Him faithful when the answer comes.
We call Him good when the diagnosis changes.
We call Him kind when the womb is filled, the prodigal returns, the relationship is restored, or the burden is lifted.
And He is.
But, He was faithful before the answer came.
He was good before the diagnosis changed.
He was kind while the prayer was still unanswered.
And He will remain all of those things even if the door you have been pleading with Him to open is never the one He chooses for you.
That is a difficult truth.
Because sometimes we do not want another lesson about waiting.
We do not want another reminder to be patient.
We just want to walk into something beautiful without having to lose something first.
We want to stop being the testimony of endurance and become the testimony of deliverance.
We want to stop explaining why we are still waiting.
We want to stop crying in the hallway.
And perhaps the most honest prayer you have prayed in a very long time is simply,
“Lord, I know You are enough. But I am so tired of being here.”
You do not have to dress your exhaustion in beautiful words before you bring it before His throne.
You do not have to pretend the hallway does not hurt.
The hallway is not outside of His presence.
He has been there in every midnight.
Every disappointment.
Every prayer you could barely finish.
Every morning you got up and obeyed Him when you could not understand what He was doing.
He has not been waiting on the other side for you to finally make it through.
He has been with you in the hallway.
the presence of God is not a consolation prize until the promise arrives.
He is the treasure.
He is the portion.
He is the exceeding great reward.
And if the door opens tomorrow, He will be worthy of your praise.
If it opens ten years from now, He will be worthy of your praise.
And if He leads you away from that door entirely, down a road you never would have chosen, He will still be worthy of your praise.
Because our hope has never been in the hinges.
Our hope has never been in the handle.
Our hope has never been in our ability to convince a closed door to open.
Our hope is in the One who holds the keys.
And He has never once misplaced them.
when you find yourself sitting on that hallway floor again, too weary to stand and too heartbroken to pray, remember this:
You do not have to make it through the door to be held by the One who opens it.
And perhaps, instead of asking Him one more time to open the door, you can simply whisper,
“Lord, if I must remain here a little longer, then sit with me.
If the answer must wait, then strengthen my faith.
If the door must remain closed, then keep my heart from growing bitter.
And if I never walk through the doorway I have spent so many years praying over, then lead me wherever You would have me go.
Because more than I need an open door, I need You.
And I would rather be in the hallway with Jesus than walk through a thousand open doors without Him.”
The door may still be closed.
But heaven has not shut you out.
And the God who promised never to leave you has not changed His mind.
