The Open Door Dilemma: Are You Chasing Opportunities or Relationships?
Episode Overview:
We’ve all heard the phrase, “follow the open doors,” but what does it really mean for your faith and business? In this episode, Jim invites you to rethink open doors as invitations—not guarantees—and reveals how true success in entrepreneurship is about character, calling, and spiritual discernment more than just chasing opportunities.
You’ll discover why closed doors can be just as important as open ones and how trusting God’s timing builds resilience and prepares you for lasting impact. This episode is for every Christian creative feeling uncertain about which path to take next.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to see open doors as invitations to deepen your relationship with God—not just chances for success
- Why focusing on character and calling matters more than chasing every opportunity
- The role of spiritual discernment in making wise decisions
- How to embrace closed doors as God’s protection and preparation
- Practical steps to steward your opportunities with faithfulness and responsibility
Reflection Questions:
- What open doors are you currently facing, and how are you discerning which to walk through?
- How has a closed door turned out to be a blessing or redirection in your journey?
- In what ways can you cultivate character and calling while navigating your business opportunities?
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Transcript
Welcome to Online Business for Christian Creatives, the show that helps you build a business that honors God, fuels your creativity, and actually pays the bills.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Jim Burgoon, leadership coach, Faith First Entrepreneur, and a guy who's made just about every mistake so you don't have to let's get into it.
Speaker A:There's a common phrase that goes around in Christianity, in entrepreneurship or just in life in general that says, follow the open doors or God's going to open a door for you.
Speaker A:And so today I want to give you a fresh perspective as well as some practical tips on how to really judge and see doors for what they are and to change that into how do we truly access these doors so that we can build relationship and build our calling.
Speaker A:So let me give you a breakdown of about six different things on to reframe what open doors really are and why they're important and why the common terminology and what we use may be hurting our understanding of what doors were meant for.
Speaker A:And with that being said, we're going to talk about the first thing, the highly first practical thing which says open doors are invitations, not guarantees.
Speaker A:Now, we have to understand they're an invitation to explore there.
Speaker A:They're not guarantees to walk through, right?
Speaker A:Because here's what it is.
Speaker A:Anytime God opens something up, calls us to something, it's an invitation to deepen our relationship.
Speaker A:It's an invitation to experience him in a greater way.
Speaker A:It's an invitation to be able to communicate him to others in a greater way.
Speaker A:They're always invitations.
Speaker A:They're not always guarantees.
Speaker A:So when we get to an open door, we have to understand that maybe that by the time we get there, the door, the Lord may shut that door.
Speaker A:We look at that in Scripture, we with Paul, Paul's like he wanted to go to one place, but because he had a dream and he was redirected to another place.
Speaker A:So we have to understand that God is doing the leading, but they're always invitations to something deeper with Him.
Speaker A:Not something deeper in our empires, our entrepreneurial journeys, our ministries, but a deeper relationship with Him.
Speaker A:And in order to understand this, we have to get deeper in prayer in Bible.
Speaker A:We have to understand what our Bible is.
Speaker A:Not just Bible reading, but Bible literacy.
Speaker A:Understand that.
Speaker A:And we have to have discernment before actually stepping through the door.
Speaker A:Because if they are invitations to relationships and not opera, just opportunities to chase, then the discernment is going to help you at what level and what position that relationship is going to look like.
Speaker A:Because God may open many doors to A single destination.
Speaker A:But all of those doors that are being open are not all of doors that you're going to need to walk through.
Speaker A:So we have to seek his guidance which is going to align with his plan in this season and realize that every season may shift, but your season right now is our invitation to deeper relationship.
Speaker A:The second reframe and that we have to really get into is that doors are part of a larger journey.
Speaker A:See, we like to think hyper focused in this area of our life, in this specific time of our life, instead of the greater journey of how are we becoming more like Jesus?
Speaker A:Even in what we're building as a business, how are we becoming more like Jesus?
Speaker A:Because that's ultimately the goal.
Speaker A:It's to develop the fruit, it's to develop the relationship, it's to build the business that creates kingdom opportunities.
Speaker A:And so we have to understand that each door, we have to look at it from a different perspective, that there are moments or seasons, not destinations.
Speaker A:Our destination, our final destination is to live eternity with Christ.
Speaker A:So every assignment we have is not our final destination, but an opportunity or a part of a larger story to get to our final destination, which is with Jesus in eternity.
Speaker A:So everything we like Ecclesiastes says we have eternity in our hearts.
Speaker A:So every door is that eternity marker that we're walking through to drive us to the final destination.
Speaker A:So we understand that sometimes doors teach, sometimes doors refine, sometimes doors test readiness, but always opens a deeper connections and relationship with him.
Speaker A:Because ultimately old open doors don't mean instant blessing.
Speaker A:Now we've got to get that out of our heads because we have been taught in Christianity that God's going to open doors and you're going to be blessed and.
Speaker A:But it doesn't always mean instant blessings.
Speaker A:Let's go back to the testings.
Speaker A:There are some times where the refinement and testing that we have has to happen so that you can be a person that can carry the blessing and not just be a person who's blessed.
Speaker A:Because here's the difference.
Speaker A:If you're a person who's just blessed, there'll come a point where it's going to test your character and you may lose the blessing that you've obtained from God.
Speaker A:However, if you are somebody who is being refined by the Lord and your character is being built, you, you can now carry the blessing into the season and not risk losing it because your character will pass that refinement test.
Speaker A:So we look for open doors as a larger communication point to the greater story, which is being with Jesus Christ.
Speaker A:And everything leads up to that.
Speaker A:The next point we want to get into, which is getting down to focus on character and calling, not just opportunity.
Speaker A:And I think there's such a there when we talk about open doors and open door theology and all this stuff where God's gonna open a door and if he doesn't open the door, he's opening a window.
Speaker A:And you've said it, I've said it.
Speaker A:But here's the challenge.
Speaker A:When we focus so much on the door and the opportunity, we miss Jesus because we become opportunist, not relational, not relation seeking.
Speaker A:We become opportunist.
Speaker A:We're more interested in building our empire than we are building the kingdom.
Speaker A:And so we have to be very careful because we have to focus on character and, and calling and not just the opportunity, because opportunities come and go.
Speaker A:Character is with you for life, calling is on your life, for your life, right?
Speaker A:And so we have to challenge each other to think in alignment with the door, this door that God is calling me into, that he show me, does it develop character?
Speaker A:Does it develop values?
Speaker A:Does it develop fruit?
Speaker A:And now a big business is not fruit.
Speaker A:Love, joy, patience is fruit.
Speaker A:So running your big business with love, joy and patience is the evidence of fruit, not just having a big business.
Speaker A:Although we don't mind big business.
Speaker A:But God cares about who you are becoming more than what you're doing.
Speaker A:God cares about how you act and represent him more than what your business's bottom line is going to make God.
Speaker A:Because why?
Speaker A:Because the Bible tells us you are a living epistle, you are the living letter to this world.
Speaker A:So what does that letter say?
Speaker A:And if you're not developing character?
Speaker A:We understand through proverbs that there's a.
Speaker A:There are times where our gifting will make room for us, but our character keeps us.
Speaker A:And we see this played out in culture.
Speaker A:That's why you see a lot of singers get up into these mega star statuses and then fall, whether it be through drugs or through something.
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Because their character can never sustain what their gifting was able to obtain.
Speaker A:And so if we're going to look at this, we focus on character and calling, not just opportunity.
Speaker A:Because if you focus on character, calling, building it with the Lord, the opportunities will constantly show up.
Speaker A:That's what favor of God is really opening up opportunities.
Speaker A:But it's requirement of the character and the calling which is evident in the fruit.
Speaker A:So you got to ask yourself, as you practically go through this, does what I'm doing is and who I'm becoming reflect the fruit of The Spirit, is it consistent with my calling?
Speaker A:And because we are building God's kingdom and we're becoming more like Jesus Christ and we're.
Speaker A:And it's not about our empires.
Speaker A:It's not about what we're doing in the world.
Speaker A:Now, is what we're doing in the world important?
Speaker A:Yes, it's absolutely important.
Speaker A:God's called you to that for a reason.
Speaker A:You have an impact, a kingdom impact for a reason in that area.
Speaker A:But it first and foremost comes away.
Speaker A:When all of that is stripped away, you're left with your calling and, and you're left with your character.
Speaker A:Are you constantly focusing on it to build it, or are you in a place of constantly chasing opportunity?
Speaker A:If you are, let's repent on focusing on opportunity and reshift back to focusing on Christ and building that calling and character.
Speaker A:The next one is understanding.
Speaker A:We have to have discernment.
Speaker A:And discernment is about balancing spiritual listening and wisdom.
Speaker A:Now I have to really dive into this because I think we've got discernment wrong in the Christian faith, in the entrepreneurial space, it really comes down to discernment is not a radar for you to find bad things.
Speaker A:I think we've really dived into this where we said, oh, I have discernment.
Speaker A:That's a bad person, that has a bad spirit, that's a demon.
Speaker A:And we really relegated our discernment to say, here are the bad stuff.
Speaker A:But if we understand Scripture, if we have that I mentioned earlier that Bible literacy, we realize that discernment is more about seeing God in the thing and as opposed to seeing the enemy in the thing.
Speaker A:So we need to reshift this and understanding through listening and wisdom.
Speaker A:Now we're supposed to constantly chase after wisdom.
Speaker A:There are books of the Bible, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and all this is talks about wisdom.
Speaker A:James says, if you're without wisdom, go chase it, ask and God will give it liberally.
Speaker A:So we have to chase wisdom.
Speaker A:We have to have spiritual listening.
Speaker A:Proverbs again goes.
Speaker A:And now I'm going to tell you Proverbs.
Speaker A:Proverbs is one of the best books for biblical entrepreneurs.
Speaker A:Got so much racked up, good stuff in there.
Speaker A:But it talks about the.
Speaker A:When we knowledge, understanding and wisdom comes from the fear of God.
Speaker A:So the greater we have fear or reverence in God, the more our spiritual ears are attuned.
Speaker A:And we hear this, we hear and we know where God is working.
Speaker A:So let me ask you this question.
Speaker A:Wouldn't you love to know where God is working in your business?
Speaker A:Or where he's working through your business as opposed to what's coming against.
Speaker A:Because I promise you, if you focus on where God is taking you, what's coming against you won't matter as much.
Speaker A:And we, and I had a theology teacher say that to me one time when I was in my undergraduate and he said it to the class and at the time I was like, wow, this is, blew my mind.
Speaker A:And he said we as Christians focus too much on demonology and not enough on Christology.
Speaker A:He said more people can tell you about what demons do than what Christ is doing.
Speaker A:And I think that's the big problem.
Speaker A:And if we're going to be spiritual entrepreneurs that have impact, that produce calling, that carry anointing, we've got to move it more into a Christ centered entrepreneurship as opposed to a demon finding or a fault finding or a bad thing.
Speaker A:Because quite frankly, a lot of what we call discernment is really our critical trauma, our trauma and our criticisms masked as discernment.
Speaker A:And so we're being critical and we're being, and we're allowing our trauma to inform things so that we can say, hey, this person's not good for us, instead of saying, hey, what does Christ want in this thing?
Speaker A:So let, so we have to assess the risk, sure.
Speaker A:But we have to understand that the doors are open and that God is all calling us into that invitation, into relationship so that we can see where he's working and how we can partner with that.
Speaker A:And now this brings back to the last two points, and one of them is closed doors are just as important as open ones.
Speaker A:Now I know we don't think like this because we oftentimes will think.
Speaker A:The fact is we always look for open doors.
Speaker A:We got to go open door, got to go open door, door, got to go open door.
Speaker A:But what if we normalize closed doors?
Speaker A:What if we normalize closed doors as a symbol of God's protection, as God's preparation, as God's redirection.
Speaker A:Did you ever think of it like that?
Speaker A:What if a closed door was preparing you for that door to open later, that the door closed now was not meant to open now.
Speaker A:And we want to force God's hand to open it now.
Speaker A:And it's meant for you down the road when your character's big enough to sustain you in the place of that door when you walk through it.
Speaker A:So let's give God glory, let's thank God, let's find gratitude in the fact that the closed doors are God protecting, redirecting, preparing us so that we can be at a place to either a walk through it at the right time or keep on going and never go back to it because it was never meant for us.
Speaker A:And we've got to settle into the place that we trust God, not trust our thoughts as much.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And so we got to embrace the doors at this place of trust.
Speaker A:Now what is really trust?
Speaker A:Because we have trust issues.
Speaker A:So let's get to the point.
Speaker A:We have trauma, we have this lots of challenges.
Speaker A:So we have trust issues and we don't trust God as much as we say we trust God.
Speaker A:How do I know is the anxiety you get when you're not given what you want, when you want is an indication that there's a trust issue.
Speaker A:So trusting is the key to relationships.
Speaker A:So if you have a relationship with God, you've got to work on the trust.
Speaker A:So trust is saying, Lord, and I had a pastor once said this to me, he says, he said, lord, I'm going to trust you with where I can right now in the midst of all of my junk.
Speaker A:But help me trust you more as I heal with you from my junk.
Speaker A:So just continue.
Speaker A:Understand that we can build trust, but trust starts somewhere with trust.
Speaker A:Because we've got to see a redirect not as failure or rejection, but it's God's love and God's preparation and God saying, hey, I want to show you something in a different way or prepare you for something that you have yet to encounter.
Speaker A:Which brings us to the last thing.
Speaker A:Because this is something that I think we're missing in inside the Christian church.
Speaker A:Especially now I speak to Christian entrepreneurs.
Speaker A:So everything I talk about is going to be really focused around the Christian entrepreneur.
Speaker A:But as when I was a pastor, it really comes down to we miss out on stewardship and responsibility like the ownership of things and the stewardship of things.
Speaker A:We're called to be stewards, we not owners.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Which means the even open doors are still belonging to God.
Speaker A:They're not our opportunities, they're God given opportunities that we have to steward properly be prepared to walk through, to be prepared to hold and to own if we mess up.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And when we mess up, even let's talk about messing up, like we'll go, we're going to make mistakes, but we have to own that.
Speaker A:Repent of whatever we need to repent of and, and really show and encourage ourselves in faithfulness and stewardship of every opportunity, big or small.
Speaker A:Remember, Bible says don't hate small beginnings.
Speaker A:And because we have to be reminded that God is working all things together and our responsibility is to take initiative, make wise choices, work with the Holy Spirit, and do the work that he's asking us to do.
Speaker A:Remember, you're not called to sit, you're called to work.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And everybody's work is different.
Speaker A:And I heard Chuck Swindoll say this once, is that when we're saved, we don't work to be saved, but when we're saved, we're called to work.
Speaker A:So with that being said, we have a stewardship of the opportunity.
Speaker A:And if we're going to steward the opportunity correctly, we've got to get deeper in relationship with God, deeper in relationship with the Holy Spirit, and then we've got to learn and study the opportunity.
Speaker A:Don't just think it's going to come to you because you have some sort of, like, precognition.
Speaker A:No, get out there.
Speaker A:If whatever your opportunity is, and there's too many opportunities to name, but whatever your opportunity is, become a student of the opportunity.
Speaker A:First and foremost, find.
Speaker A:What does the word say about your opportunity?
Speaker A:Second, what does the actual opportunity mean?
Speaker A:So if you're called to learn AI, get in there and learn AI, Learn how to be a power user.
Speaker A:If you're called to write, not only just write, but get in there and learn the craft of writing.
Speaker A:You see how we can dive into deeper?
Speaker A:So first and foremost, we check the Bible, we read the Bible, we work with the Holy Spirit, and then we get into learning the craft and developing the craft, and then we do.
Speaker A:And we all execute this at the same time.
Speaker A:It doesn't mean you have to do 1, then 2, then 3.
Speaker A:1, 2, 3 and 4 can be all done together.
Speaker A:But we have to steward the responsibility because we are given that responsibility.
Speaker A:And that opportunity is going to be called back and God's going to say, what did you do with the opportunity I gave you?
Speaker A:I steward it because it's your thing.
Speaker A:So here's how I managed it while you had it in my hands.
Speaker A:So all of that leads to the fact that we open doors need to be reframed.
Speaker A:Open doors need.
Speaker A:They're really invitations.
Speaker A:Their discernment is going to be vital.
Speaker A:It's character that's being developed and it matters the most.
Speaker A:Closed doors have value and we need to steward.
Speaker A:Well, that's the recap of the whole thing we were just talking about.
Speaker A:So I want to, I want to encourage you guys to pause, take a moment, rest, pause and pray.
Speaker A:Reflect on the opportunities that you have right now, the potential opportunities, because it's not just one door.
Speaker A:Stop being hyper fixated on one door.
Speaker A:God opens many doors and the Bible tells us the God that Jesus is the door.
Speaker A:So follow the Holy Spirit through Jesus to the right door.
Speaker A:But there's many doors open and so pray and discern and reflect and say, okay God, what opportunities do you have you put before me, what, which one do you want me to take and what am I developing in the midst of it?
Speaker A:And so if you have any questions, if you thoughts you want to add to this episode, drop them in the comments.
Speaker A:If you are listening to this on one of the podcasts, Apple Iradio, things like that, send me a message jim leadwith jim.com and just let me know what is your thoughts.
Speaker A:And then with that being said, I want to encourage you guys to just go chase God for the opportunity, wherever the door opens, whatever the door leads you to.
Speaker A:Because the opportunity is not only an opportunity for a greater relationship with him, it's an opportunity to impact this world.
Speaker A:And that's ultimately what you want, is to make a difference.
Speaker A:And so with all that being said, wherever you're watching, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Speaker A:I thank God for you.
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Speaker A:You're going to see a lot more different things come out and comment.
Speaker A:Let's have a conversation.
Speaker A:I'm going to see you on a later episode and if there's ever any topics you want me to cover, send me a Message jim@leadwithjim.com Send me a message on some topic ideas and let's see, let me pray about them and see where God will leave.
Speaker A:With that being said, I'm grateful for you to be here.
Speaker A:We'll see you on a future episode.
