Coco Calling No.229 - When the Church Doors are Locked

Before my owner and his wife went on their recent trip to Norway, I hatched a plan with them. Everyone in Norway speaks English, so I asked them to take some copies of my book, and to leave them, as a kind of parrot gift, in any churches that they happened to visit. After all, the Norwegians are kind enough to give us a Christmas Tree every year. It seemed a fool-proof plan to me, but I hadn’t reckoned on one small problem, and that was the churches in Norway were always locked. Big churches, little churches, in between-sized churches, -even the churches in Norway’s second city -Bergen -were locked up and apparently not even being used for Sunday morning worship. In fact, the only church that they were able to get inside was the Arctic Cathedral in Tromso, where they had to pay around £8.00 each for the privilege. And rather regrettably, this church seemed to be serving more as an architectural attraction than as a place of Christian worship.

But God had other plans for my books! Because back onboard their boat, as my owner and his wife got to meet the other passengers, more and more of them turned out to be practising Christians. And that meant they were very happy to be given a sample copies of my book to take them back to their churches in the U.K. And I’m pleased to say that in the end, every copy found a welcome home. And I reckon we can all learn a lesson from this experience. Because in God’s world, when one door closes, another usually opens. And it might not be the door that we were expecting. No wonder humans say that ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ So whenever things don’t work out as planned, and we begin to feel discouraged, it’s probably time for us to put our trust in Him and to prepare for the unexpected!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3: 5-6)

“…for it is God who works in you to fulfil his good purpose.”

(Philippians 2:13)