From the sermon preached on August 17, 2025
God is a waymaker — not because life always goes according to plan, but because He is always working a plan you can’t yet see.
Why Does God Close Doors We're Praying For?
There’s a moment in Acts 16 that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. The apostle Paul and his companion Silas are on a mission to take the gospel into Asia Minor — a region with no knowledge of Jesus. They have clear vision, a solid team, and every reason to believe they’re walking in God’s will. Then God shuts the door. No explanation. No alternate route was handed to them. Just a closed door on a plan they were certain about.
Most of us would have called that a failure. Paul called it a redirect.
The Bible tells us in Acts 16:6 that the Holy Spirit prevented them from entering Asia Minor. So they pivoted toward Macedonia — modern-day Europe — a place they hadn’t planned on going. What happened next changed the course of Western history. The gospel set foot in Europe for the first time, an entire household was saved, and the first church on European soil was born.
Closed doors, it turns out, aren’t walls. They’re arrows. Revelation 3:7 says it plainly: “When he opens, what he opens, no one can shut. And what he shuts, no one can open.” The same God who opens the right doors also closes the wrong ones — and both are acts of love.
If you’re in Miami right now carrying the weight of a closed door, consider this: God may not be punishing you. He may be positioning you.
What Should You Do When God Redirects Your Plans?
When Paul arrived in Philippi with no plan, no contacts, and no building, he did the only thing he knew to do — he prayed and waited. That’s not passivity. That’s a posture of surrender.
It was in that posture that Paul met a woman named Lydia. She was a successful Gentile businesswoman from Thyatira who had found her way into the Jewish worship gathering — an outsider who was hungry for something more. As Paul shared his story in conversation — not from a pulpit, not with sermon notes — Lydia’s heart opened to the gospel of Jesus Christ. She was baptized, and she immediately offered her home as the base for the missionary team.
That home became the church at Philippi, one of the most beloved churches in the entire New Testament.
Paul never knew Lydia was waiting on the other side of his detour. He just surrendered and showed up. There is someone on the other side of your yes — a “Lydia” whose life will be changed because you stopped fighting God’s redirection and started following it. When God redirects your course, it’s an invitation to a fresh surrender and a refining of your motives.
How Can You Praise God When You're Stuck in a Midnight Season?
After Lydia’s conversion, things got harder before they got better. Paul cast a demon out of a slave girl — an act of compassion that cost him dearly. Her owners, furious that their source of income was gone, had Paul and Silas arrested, stripped, beaten with rods, and thrown into the inner prison with their feet in stocks.
If there was ever a moment to give up, this was it. Instead, Acts 16:25 tells us: “About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening.”
The midnight hour is the hardest time to sing. Your circumstances are dark, your body is bruised, and you can’t see what’s coming next. But Paul and Silas didn’t wait until the door opened to start praising — they praised their way to the door. As Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “Any fool can sing in the day… but a skillful singer is he who can sing when there’s not a ray of light to read by.”
Their worship shook the foundations of that prison. Every door flew open. Every chain fell off. And the jailer — a man on the edge of taking his own life — fell trembling before them and asked the most important question in the New Testament: “What must I do to be saved?”
Power and demonstration opened the door. Then came the words.
What Does It Actually Look Like to Trust God When Life Feels Like a Prison?
Here’s the pattern Acts 16 gives us:
|
The World’s Response |
God’s Response |
| Barge through the closed door | Surrender and follow the redirect |
| Complain in the midnight hour | Pray and praise through the pain |
| Run when the earthquake opens the door | Stay put and trust the process |
| Assume it’s all about you | Remember there are Lydias and jailers waiting |
God doesn’t just make a way for you. He makes a way through you — for the people on the other side of your obedience.
How to Apply This to Your Life This Week
- Name the closed door. Whatever door feels shut right now — write it down. Acknowledge the grief, the frustration, the confusion. Bring it honestly before God.
- Ask the refining question. Before demanding God reopen that door, ask: “Lord, is there any selfish ambition attached to this desire?” That question, asked sincerely, can be transformative.
- Find your Silas. Paul and Silas were chained together in that cell. When one couldn’t lift his arms, the other did. You were not designed to walk through midnight seasons alone. Find one person who will pray with you.
- Praise before you see the outcome. Pick one song this week. Sing it not because things have changed, but because God hasn’t. That act of faith is more powerful than you know.
Your God Has Not Changed — And He Is Not Done With You
The same God who parted the Red Sea for Moses in Exodus 14, who made a path through the Jordan River in Joshua 3, who told Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that He would always provide a way out — that God is still on the throne today. He is not scrambling. He is not surprised. He is not done.
If you’re feeling stuck right now — in a season that feels like a prison, surrounded by closed doors — this is not where your story ends. Your God is a waymaker. And when He makes a way, it won’t just change your life. It will change the lives of everyone attached to your surrender.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why does God close doors we've been praying hard for?
Closed doors are rarely punishments — they are often redirections. In Acts 16, God prevented Paul from entering Asia Minor specifically to send him to Europe, where the gospel would spread for the first time. What feels like a dead end is often a divine detour toward something greater than you planned.
What does it mean that God is a waymaker?
To say God is a waymaker means He is, by nature, a path-giver. Scripture confirms this repeatedly — He split the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21), made streams in the wasteland (Isaiah 43:16), and declared through Jesus, “I am the way” (John 14:6). Even when you see no way forward, God is already ahead of you, making one.
How do you praise God in the midnight hour when everything is falling apart?
Paul and Silas modeled this in Acts 16 — beaten, chained, and imprisoned at midnight, they chose to pray and sing. Worship in pain isn’t denial; it’s defiance against despair. It’s declaring that God’s nature doesn’t change based on your circumstances. Start small: one honest prayer, one song, one act of surrender.
What should I do when I feel like God redirected my plans completely?
First, grieve the loss of what you expected — that’s healthy. Then ask God to search your motives, as Pastor Rich described from Acts 16. Finally, take the next small step of obedience, even without clarity. Paul arrived in Philippi with no plan and still changed the continent. Your faithful next step matters more than a complete roadmap.
How do unanswered prayers serve a purpose?
Unanswered prayers protect us from outcomes we don’t have the wisdom to foresee, and they redirect us toward what God has already prepared. As 1 Corinthians 10:13 reminds us, God is faithful — He provides peace as we endure, and He always provides a way through. Many believers, looking back, find themselves thanking God for the prayers He didn’t answer the way they asked.
