31 Oct A locked door, a trapped boy: prayer is the key
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7 (NIV)
>DING-DONG<<
Ugh!
Who could be ringing the doorbell at 10am in the morning? But, before I had a chance to think about it any further, another chime blared out:
>>DING-DONG!<<
Rarely have I experienced house visitors ringing the doorbell a second time so quickly. Must be a kid. Now what kid would be out of school at this time of the…?
>>DING-DONG!!<<
Again?! What in the world is going on?! Why would people ring the doorbell so…?
>>DING-DONG!!!<<
OK, this is getting obnoxious! Who does that?! So agitated was I that I shut my upstairs office door, content to let my bride handle this supposed intruder at the door.
Wow, Travis, lots of courage there….
Much of the time, I travel to minister, but this morning, God literally brought ministry right to my door.
And I was shutting my own door to that ministry.
But our God would not be deterred by my selfishness.
Something was very wrong
Soon after my bride descended the stairs to welcome this urgent front door visitor, a rushed dialogue followed, and while I couldn’t quite make out the words they were saying, the tone reached me loud and clear. It quickly became clear that something was very wrong.
Next thing I knew, Suzanne gently wrapped on my office door then cracked it open to reveal the issue, “Trav, there’s a problem. Muhammad (not his real name) is here looking for a spare house key, because Martha’s (not her real name) son, Conrad (again, not his real name) locked him out. He really needs your help.”
(OK, don’t I feel like the biggest jerk now?)
A quick backstory follows. Martha is a single mom who lives just down the street from us. Through the years, Martha frequently asked my own sons and me to mow her lawn, and she gave us a spare house key, so we could access her lawn mower. Like all houses, they require a lot of upkeep, so Martha eventually needed more help than we could provide and hired Muhammad, a kind, retired man, who not only mowed her lawn, but also did odd jobs around her house and looked after Conrad as the need arose. Conrad is a vibrant elementary schooler with Down syndrome, who now found himself trapped inside his own house.
So, as I hurriedly shuffled downstairs to the front door, my eyes confirmed what my ears had heard upstairs: Muhammad was indeed panicking.
“Hi, Muhammad, how are you doing?” I sheepishly greeted him. His mood was glaringly opposite of mine. His eyes were wild, his mood tense as he blurted out in a thick accent, “Conrad locked me out of the house and is trapped inside! Do you still have one of Martha’s house keys to free Conrad?”
No wonder he was panicked: Conrad truly was trapped in the house and didn’t know how to open the locked door himself! How long would it be until Conrad started to panic just as Muhammad was doing now?
“No, I don’t think so; I’m pretty certain we returned Martha’s key a few years ago,” I absently noted as I desperately grappled to get my head around this developing emergency. “Let me check, Muhammad,” as I dashed to our key holder, grabbing a set of random keys which I produced for his inspection.
“No, no, no! None of those will work; they’re not the right keys!” Muhammad adamantly rejected. “Do you have any other ideas?”
“Uh, I think so, Muhammad. Let’s get down there and see what we can do,” as a plan began to take shape in my mind. I distinctly sensed the need to keep calm, even as Muhammad came unglued.
The walk to Martha’s house – Conrad’s prison – took less than a minute, but Muhammad’s fear ravaged his mood as his words spilled out even quicker than our hustle to get to Martha’s house. “I’m so sorry, I should have been paying more attention! Conrad is going to be scared, and we have no way to get him out! What can we do, Travis? How can we open this door to free precious Conrad?”
Baffled as well, I did the only thing I knew to do: I prayed aloud, even as we approached Martha’s house. “Dear God, please protect Conrad and help us free him. Amen.”
“Amen! God will help us!” Muhammad succinctly punctuated as we arrived at the locked front door.
And Muhammad was right: none of my keys fit. Time for Plan B, a decidedly drastic Plan B.
Plan B in action
Now, this is where some of our faithful readers may question me, even raise their collective eyebrows at me as I reveal Plan B: using a credit card to break into a locked house. Many of you are asking yourself, “What kind of a pastor uses a credit card to break into a locked house?”
My answer: a desperate one!
“Muhammad,” I communicated, “since none of these keys fit, I’m going to use a credit card to see if I can gain access to Conrad.” Muhammad rapidly nodded his head, “Yes, yes, but will it work?”
“Well, I’m praying that it does: I can usually gain access to my own locked house in less than 60 seconds, so hopefully this does the trick!” I nervously relayed.
I selected a flimsy card from my wallet and immediately put it to work as I had done a half-a-dozen times before. Muhammad stood anxiously by, chattering his rightful concern for Conrad.
Back and forth, I tried jamming the card at different angles, different speeds, different approaches, but, for some reason, this door just would not open. Several minutes passed even as beads of sweat collected on my brow as the grim reality washed over me: Plan B wasn’t working.
“C’mon, this has GOT to work!” I pleaded aloud as if the door could hear me. Still more time elapsed, and I noticed my own mood was beginning to more closely mirror Muhammad’s tense mood.
More time passed, and the more I tried, the more damaged my card became which reduced its effectiveness. Time for a thicker credit card.
Feverishly, I jammed the thicker card into the slot between the door and doorframe, trying every trick I knew, but nothing I was doing was working!
More time gone, yet all I could hear from the house was silence: would Conrad be OK for much longer? Inside my own head, I began to panic, too.
“Are there any other doors we could access besides this one, Muhammad?” I gasped.
“No, Travis, every other door in the house has a special childproof lock at the top of the door, so Conrad isn’t able to flee. This is the only door.”
“OK, God, this is the only way,” I mumbled, dropping any pretense I previously harbored about staying calm for Muhammad.
At this point, I shoved down the rising question in my own doubting mind, “Am I going to be able to get Conrad out?”
By now, it had been over 10 minutes since Muhammad had showed up at my house seeking help, and we were both fretting about Conrad being trapped inside for so long. Sensing my frustration, Muhammad conceded, “Travis, I’m not sure what we’re going do! Maybe you keep trying, and I’ll go around back to see if I can get Conrad’s attention to keep him calm.” And, with that he darted around the side of the house leaving me with two mangled credits cards and no sense of hope.
And that’s when the Spirit prompted me to again pray.
Prayer is the key
“Jesus,” I whispered to the door, “I can’t do this by myself. In fact, I can’t do anything by myself – I need Your help. Conrad needs Your help.” My body trembled as my voice produced this truth, even though only the door seemed to be there to hear my confession.
My hands visibly shaking now, I cried out to the Lord, “Jesus, you promise in Your Word of Matthew 7:7, ‘Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.’ Jesus, I believe Your promises! Will you please open this door to free Conrad?”
And, as if working through an out-of-body experience, I gently rapped twice on the door, but not so loud as to startle Conrad, then proceeded to gently push the damaged credit card into the slot between the door and the doorframe as I had done dozens of times before…
…and the lock unlatched – a miracle of God!!!
Immediately, the door swung open and I bellowed out tears of joys that struck the wooden floor of Conrad’s house, not unlike the tears of joy that spontaneously appeared as I typed up this update!
Jesus, you are AWESOME!!!
I scampered to the rear of the house to check on Conrad where I found him happily playing on his iPad, not a care in the world. Realizing from experience that Conrad might not immediately recognize me and become startled, I made a wide arc around him, and, slowly catching his eye, smiled as I waved a big hello to him. Conrad’s little smile lit up the room as I silently thanked God for answering our desperate prayer.
Then, turning to my left, I witnessed an overjoyed Muhammad standing outside the house on the other side of the back porch sliding glass door, watching the rescue take place. Remembering Muhammad’s earlier words, I unlocked both the childproof lock at the top of door as well as the standard lock, ushering a bounding Muhammad into the house.
His face alight in pure joy, Muhammad proclaimed to me, “Wow, Travis, you saved Conrad – you are the savior!”
What?! What a minute. He thinks I’m the Savior?
“Oh, no, Muhammad,” I fumbled to explain, “I’m not the savior, Jesus is the Savior!”
Muhammad smiled even bigger as he hugged Conrad, and God allowed me to get my footing again. Both Muhammad’s and Conrad’s eyes were fixed upon me.
“Muhammad, I didn’t do anything but pray,” I explained to this now elated man. “After you went around back to calm Conrad, I cried out to God, ‘Jesus, you promise in Your Word of Matthew 7:7, ‘Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.’ Jesus, I believe Your promises! Will you please open this door to free Conrad?’ And God opened the door!
“God is so good, Travis,” Muhammad rejoiced, “you saved us!”
“No, no, I didn’t save us, Muhammad – God did that! God guided you to my house, we prayed that He would free Conrad, and He did that by working through both you and me to free this precious boy Conrad. Please know, Jesus our Savior died on the cross for our sins and rose again in three days to save us! Praise God!!!”
“Praise God!!!” Muhammad echoed in return. Hugs all around!
With that, I left this smiling duo to finish out the remainder of their day and, in truth, I was starting to cry again, my tears striking not only the wooden floor of the house but lingering on to strike the pavement as I walked back home in wonder of what our God had done in saving Conrad.
So, I return to where I began: a selfish guy (me!) who had his own plans for the day, a guy who didn’t want to be interrupted by anything or anybody.
But God would not have it. He answered our heartfelt prayer to unlock a door none of us could do by ourselves. God answers prayer, the key to unlocking closed door. Prayer is the key!
A surprise twist…
The reason I was able to open that locked door freeing Conrad was because we prayed to God for a miracle just as He promises in His Word: prayer was the key. But, in a surprise twist, as one of my mentors wisely commented after hearing this story, the reason God could work through Muhammad and me was because my bride, Suzanne, opened our own house door to Muhammad’s desperate plea for help. Humbling!
Let me close now with this simple question: Who has God sent knocking on YOUR door, and how will YOU respond?
On behalf of our board and serving Jesus with you,
Travis L. Zimmerman
Pastor and Co-Founder
