Open Windows

Open Windows

I had a window issue. My car’s back driver’s side window wouldn’t stay up. No matter how many times I raised it, as soon as the car started moving, it would slip down again. When the weather was good, this meant only a slight bit of wind noise. But my slip-sliding window made rainy days a potential recipe for disaster and rendered trips to the car wash all but impossible.

While the car window was slipping, the windows of my little 1920s rental bungalow were shut tight and hadn’t been open for ages. I couldn’t catch a breeze for love or money. Funny, no? Rolling, I couldn’t keep my windows shut, and sitting still, I couldn’t open them!

My heart has windows as well. Is it any surprise that I’d like to either shut them when they fly open against my better judgment or pry them loose when the longing for air outweighs my fear of exposure? In theory, of course, the choice is mine. But windows, it seems, have a mind of their own.

Looking through an old journal, I read the recorded words of a friend who opined, “Leigh, from the front you’re like a fortified city with a moat, but around back there’s a screen door barely hanging on its hinges.” He didn’t quit there. “God help the man who tries to scale the front, but bless the one who bothers to try the back door instead.”

I thought hard about those words. He was right. But since he spoke them, I’ve discovered more: I can’t open my heart to God on the one hand and shut it to the world. Nor can I shut my heart to the world (even when I’m afraid) and expect to hold it open to God. Same windows. The challenge is to trust my Father with the rain and noise and heat that are beyond my power to control. Open windows are risky, yes. But nailing them shut, well, that’s a kind of living death.

Give me open windows every time.

The moment I called out and you stepped in; you made my life large with strength. . . . Finish what you started in me, GOD. Your love is eternal—don’t quit on me now.

Psalm 138:3, 8, MSG