No Wrong Door - Trusting God at the Crossroads

What do you do when you’re standing in front of multiple good choices … and you’re afraid of picking the wrong one?

In this episode of Deep Water, Jackie and Christi dive into the tension many of us feel when facing life’s crossroads. We often pray for clarity — one obvious door, one obvious answer. But what happens when there are several good options in front of us?

Is there really only one “right” choice?

Together they explore how fear of making the wrong decision can quietly paralyze us, keeping us standing on the welcome mat instead of stepping forward in faith. They talk about the subtle role of pride and false humility in decision-making, the freedom that comes from trusting God’s sovereignty, and the beautiful truth that we are not powerful enough to derail God’s plans.
From Joshua’s challenge to “choose this day whom you will serve,” to the promise that “the Lord establishes our steps,” this conversation reminds us that the real question may not be which door is perfect, but whether we trust the One waiting on the other side.

Because when God is the keeper of our steps, we don’t have to live paralyzed by fear—we can simply turn the knob and walk forward with Him.

In this episode:
Why fear can keep us from stepping through life’s open doors
The difference between God’s perfect will and His permissive will
Pride, false humility, and the pressure to make the “perfect” choice
How God redeems even our missteps
Learning to trust the One who walks with us beyond the door
If you’ve ever felt stuck between good options or afraid of making the wrong decision, this episode will encourage you to step forward in faith.

Subscribe for more conversations about faith, everyday life, and encountering God in the ebb and flow of it all.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey, friend. Hi, Jackie. Welcome to Ohio. Yes. Didn't you just leave me in Florida? I did.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

And I think when we were together there, I brought cold and rain to Florida with me. Oh, that's right. And now you're here.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

We were freezing on the inlet while we were doing our last recording.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Yes, and now we're in Ohio freezing and raining. And you know what? God keeps bringing us together.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

He does. And how wonderful is that. I'm going to take that win. Yes, let's do.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Always together is always better.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

It is. It is. So we're going to seize this moment today. And what do we have, Jackie?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

We're going to talk about wrong doors. Ooh, okay. Because I don't know about you, but I really appreciate it when God opens one door for me. Yes. And makes it abundantly clear.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Exceedingly abundantly clear. That he was on the other side of the doorknob, on the other side of the door, holding the doorknob, turning it and opening it and welcoming you in and saying you chose the right door. Yes. Yes. What do you do if you have multiple good choices?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Air quotes there.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Wow. Yeah. It can leave you a little perplexed and actually compel you not to open a door. There you go. Right? Absolutely. So maybe there's no wrong door. Well, that's what we want to talk about. Okay, so let's go there. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Does clarity, there's only one good door, there's only one right door, remove pressure or does it increase pressure? Because if you have multiple good doors, then is there the lie that only one of those good doors could be what God wants for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

The answer is a door to me. Yeah, just singing off the cuff here. A door to me would be a crossroad of choices. Yes. Okay. Yeah. You could have different doors. Just like I know when when our kids were little, my methodology of getting them dressed for school, when they were little, of course, while you still had to say. Yes. Is I would lay out options. Yes. A pair of socks or a shirt. They wake up in the morning. Guess what? You can choose this one, or you can choose this one. Yes. And most likely it meant that there was not going to be an argument that day. It's not I'm not doing that. I want this choice. And then it would blow up. So if they're given like you can wear this shirt or you can wear this shirt, more times than not, they had the opportunity to make a decision. Yes. To make the choice of which one to wear. Yes. And then we were out the door. Yes. So likewise, I think as we have matured, hopefully. Hopefully. That we look and say, okay, if there's two doors. Yes. And we are using making good choices. Yes. Does the door really matter? Ooh. Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

It always circles back to that faith and trust in Christ, doesn't it? Because does the door even matter?

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah. Is it the door or the choices that you make when after you pick the door? It's such a deep well for me. And as we were approaching this podcast this morning, I thought, it's not just a door.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

It's not just a door. No.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

There's a lot that goes into a door. The things that hold up the door, the what is on the door, which you could have a door knocker, a lock, a knob, and even have windows. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

So it's not really about a door, it's about the choice and walking into threshold moments. You know, all about those threshold moments. Um but literally, if we look at the structure of the door and we could say, okay, that is the firmament of our faith. God has put that structure in place. And you've got these three good choices, these three good options in front of you. And you know, in faith by experience that God has given you good options. How do we stop from turning it back on ourselves and saying, ooh, okay, there are three good doors here. There are three good options here. I must pick the best one. Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

I think it goes back to being paralyzed that whatever decision we make is going to lead, could have potential to fail. And then there arrives a fear that way, there's actually no choices to be made because everybody's paralyzed which door to choose. But if we really pulled it back and pulled deep on our the roots of our faith and say, you know what? God's gotten me to this point that if I just turn the knob on this door and open it, that God's going to be waiting on the other side, leading us and guiding us to make to work it all for good. And we shouldn't really operate in fear. I think about that in so much of my life, I can attest to, I have operated in so much fear that has helped that has actually kept me on the welcome mat. And I never ever was able to walk through some of that things that I knew if I would just have stepped in, if I would have tipped my toe into the crack of that door, that something different might have happened. And it's not even FOMO. It's not even fear that I missed out, not missing out, that I missed out on an opportunity. It's like, wow, did I miss the mark on what where God was leading me?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

So I'm just throwing all my five pages of notes out the window here because as you're speaking, there are two words that are like neon signs flashing in my brain. Oh, do tell. Pride and false humility. That's not two words, that's three words. Pride and false humility. And in all of that, fear comes from either pride or false humility. Thinking that we somehow can choose better or need to choose better or need to understand the perfect will of God. And we have so much ability within us that whatever we choose could derail God's plan.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

That is so good. That's so so you're saying that our pride is like we're making the decision. And maybe we've taken the factor of God, God's um omnipotence and his and his presence with us and his guidance and the Holy Spirit guiding us, like maybe we make that second instead of it being primary. Yeah. Is that what you're saying? I think so. Am I picking up what you're putting down?

SPEAKER_01 7:46

If you're picking up what I'm putting down. And it totally, again, it's not where my notes for us, at least on my side, we're going today. But how many times do we we not step into an opportunity because we're afraid we're going to ruin it?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Right. And I think that's where our crossroad of our choices come from. In the book of Joshua, when the people, when Israel was the people, Israel, were able to come back into the promised land.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

And to kind of get things back in order from the way things were, from what drew them away. And now they're coming back. Joshua literally sat and had a reality check with them, said, okay, now that you've walked through the threshold moment of being able to come back into the promised land. Yes. Like that is just glorious. I can't even imagine that moment. Yes. Like, we are actually here. So many of the other people didn't make it along the way, along the trek back. But he had, he said, guess what? This is your crossroad moment. Okay. You can either fear God and leave your old ways behind. You can either serve God or go ahead and take it upon yourself to think about the choices that you are deciding to make, or you can worship God, or you can be with us on this journey, or not. It's like the system of the or.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Should we coin that phrase? The system of the or.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

The system of the or because it is all about choices. It's when we're talking about choices, it's not you can't pick two doors either. No. Like it's sometimes it's possible. It's like eat having your slice of cake and then eating the rest of it after everybody leaves.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

But not, I mean, not that I've ever done that ever.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

And if we get back to our choices, uh some choices are not as important as others. Sure. Did you know that there's 30, about 33,000 decisions and choices we make per day? There you go with numbers again. I know, but it's so cool. 33,000 micro decisions and macro decisions. Yes. Yes. Wow. And 26, no, 226 of those are about food. That I believe. Isn't that crazy? About food. So I know some of those doors are going to be more pivotal. They're going to be more important for decision making. But all in all, it comes down to are you going to have this one? Are you going to choose that one? I feel like I'm talking your ear off. It might be the coffee.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

It's the good coffee, by the way. We've discovered this new iced coffee and are enjoying it. No, you're not. Can I plug that coffee? Can we plug coffee? I don't know. It's I think it's called Stoke S-T-O-K. It's iced coffee, and we do the espresso blend and deep water. Cheers to the Stoke iced coffee. So the Bible tells us, Christy, time and again. Okay, God says, I've put before you life and life and death. Choose life. So having choices is not a foreign concept to God or to those of us that are, you know, follow his word. It goes back to Adam and Eve, their choice. So the the level of opportunity in choice is not some strange thing to Christ's followers. I put life and death in front of you, choose life. That's a big one. That's not a do we have iced coffee with cream or without cream? It's it's that's a big one, right? We're not talking about those doors today. Right. Not today. Um I don't have like chap book, chapter, and verse, but the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his step. There's this very real concern that I have walked through, and I've watched my kiddos walk through that I can choose wrong. I can choose the wrong door. And there will be consequences to that. And how do we get through the fear of the choice that you were talking about into the confidence that we're not big enough, again, we're not big enough to disrupt God. Right. And even if we choose poorly, maybe it's not a maybe it's not a good door. Maybe we make choices that aren't truly good choices. We're still not big enough to derail God and God's plan. So good. Yeah. You're right. God's permissive will exists alongside his perfect will. And in a fallen world, there is the space to make bad choices. Right. But God's bigger than even the bad choices.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

He can still work all things for good. Talk to me about that. Well, as you were talking, the very first thing I thought of is some extreme choices that have been made by other humans.

unknown 13:14

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Time and time again, people go to prison for some pretty severe things that cannot be undone. Undone. Okay. How many people, I can assure you, because I've heard it straight from their mouth, that are in prison and say they found God in prison and they wouldn't have changed anything other than what they did, like remorseful, certainly. But it was those things that got them to God where they have found their greatest purpose in prison. And yet they walked through, they opened a door that led to some very severe consequence. But they said that God has, they have allowed God to move and operate and take priority over any other decision they make in their life in prison sometimes. So can you speak from experience on that? I do. And I love that because even how you said that, it was very inspiring, impatible. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

If we let God, again, it's the choice in faith. If we let God, because God is a gentleman, he does not insist. He offers. If we let God work for our greatest good in our lives, we can't help but take the missteps that the doors we wished had never been opened. We can't help but take that and glean a lesson of grace and mercy. Yeah. I think it's grace at its finest. It's it's the message that you and I circle back to time and again. And I'm always the deep water is always that moment of surprise when we're just talking about life. And God goes, okay, here you go. Here's the lesson. And this is not what we had planned to talk about today, but God's grace and mercy in our lives and for us. And you had started to talk about, you know, the structure of the door and the foundation and the framework and all of the decorative pieces that are on the doors. That there's something there in the fortitude of God.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah. You know what I love the most? Tell me is it's not even like maybe this whole topic, no wrong door, has everything to do with what's beyond the door and what awaits us beyond the door. Yes. Because it doesn't matter ultimately if we're if we're making good decisions and we're sensible. Yes. And with good intention, trying our best to pick the best door on which to turn the knob and open. Yes. That once we open that door, could it be quite possible? Could it be? Maybe. Which is the anticipation of not only who's on the other side of the door, but who's actual who belongs and who owns the doorway and the hallway. When you step through the door. God's gonna be there. Yes. He's going to walk you through and order those steps that you talked about. And he's never ever leaving you. He's never ever forsaking you, or or he's or going, you know, the peekaboo behind the door. He's standing there. He's like, okay, now let's walk this out. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Walk it out, not ahead of him. Not guessing. But with him. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

The keeper of our steps, right? The keeper of our steps. Friend, I love that we got to be here today. Yeah, I love it too. The keeper of our steps. No wrong door. Okay. I guess until next time. Bye for now. Bye.