The world today is awash with knowledge, spectacular achievements and scientific breakthroughs. You only have to spend some time on the internet to realise this. So how have we managed to create such disaster areas in our own lives and in some cases those around us?

Once upon a time there was a man sentenced to prison for twenty years for a crime he didn’t commit. Day after day he sat in his windowless cell and wept bitterly as he remembered his wife and family waiting for him on the outside and he couldn’t be with them. The day dawned, but he couldn’t feel the sun upon his face, or the wind, or the rain and when after long hours the darkness came and he could see no stars in the night sky.

Thus he sat on his hard bed, day after day and night after night, wretched and inconsolable, grieving over his terrible misfortune, until a year passed. Then one day he arose from his bed, went to the stout wooden door and beat on it with his fists and cried out, “Oh my God! Why have you forsaken me?” The door was unlocked and it swung open and the man walked home to his wife and family and to freedom.

Perhaps, this is only a story and there never was a man imprisoned behind stone walls. But how many of us have been imprisoned in this way by fear, doubt, grief, sorrow and despair?

We must all take courage, for God will come and open the door for us, but we must be willing to give it a push first.

“Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man hears my voice, then I will come in to him.”