It is said that a king once requested the most renowned carpenter in his kingdom to craft a new throne for him, to replace his old one. The carpenter was thrilled by this great honor and immediately set to work. However, the king was very demanding, and the new throne did not meet his expectations. As a result, he ordered that the carpenter be executed at dawn.
The carpenter asked to spend his last night at home, and the king agreed. That night, the carpenter could not sleep—how could he, knowing that in the morning, his head would meet the executioner’s blade? But his wife told him, “Sleep as you always do; the Lord is one, and there are many doors!” And so, the carpenter slept, only to be awakened by the cries of soldiers and the sound of horses in his courtyard.
He knew then that his time had come. When there was a knock on the door, he prepared himself for his fate. But instead, the head of the soldiers said, “The king has died, and we need you to build his coffin!”
The carpenter whispered, “Truly, the Lord is one, and there are many doors.”
This story may not be real, but the undeniable truth is that the Lord is one, and there are indeed many doors!
All of us, at some point, have found ourselves in situations where we feel completely stuck, believing there is no escape, and that life has lost its flavor and purpose. Yet, with the passage of time, we find that obstacles have been removed, and barriers have been broken down. The only explanation for this is that there is a Lord who never abandons us, even when we turn away from Him and knock on people’s doors instead.
Each of us has longed deeply for something, believing that our entire life hinged on that desire. We may have even felt resentful when God’s will differed from our own. But later, time reveals that the best outcome was indeed what God had chosen for us. We, as humans, often realize too late that God sometimes withholds what we want to grant us what we truly need!
God arranges matters in ways we cannot fully comprehend at the moment. We, with our limited perspective, only see one side—our side! But God orchestrates the entire situation.
The Muslims set out only intending to intercept the Quraysh caravan, which they thought was the greatest victory they could achieve at the time. But later, they learned that if the caravan had survived, Abu Jahl and Umayyah ibn Khalaf would have survived as well!
Had the fate of Moses been in his mother’s hands, she would never have cast him into the river. But the One who controlled her fate wanted to send a message to Pharaoh: “You have killed thousands of children out of fear of this one—now take him and raise him in your palace despite yourself!” Who would have thought on that morning that Moses’ mother, by casting her son into the river, was hammering the final nail in Pharaoh’s coffin?
If it had been up to Jacob, he would never have let Joseph out of his sight. He wanted him as a son in his arms, but God wanted him to be a king on the throne of Egypt!
This perfect and precise orchestration, which we now recognize because we know the outcomes of these stories, is the same way God arranges our own lives. In our own stories, in God’s choices for us, because we have not seen the entire event unfold and cannot perceive the wisdom in its entirety, doubt may creep in for a moment, for we are human. But let us remain respectful of God. Even if the wisdom escapes us, let us not forget that the One who gathered Quraysh and the Muslims without prior arrangement, cast Moses into Pharaoh’s home to bring about his downfall, and took Joseph from his father to make him a king and save the people of Egypt, has never for a moment abandoned us. He manages our affairs with the same wisdom and mercy—His eternal and infinite attributes. The Lord of all goodness brings only goodness, so attach your hearts to God!