Seasons and Horizons

Sometimes a door begins to open long before we realize we’re standing in front of it.

Today my phone rang from a number I didn’t recognize.

I answered it without knowing who was on the other end or what they wanted. Within a few minutes, the person was talking to me about dates, outstanding issues, processes, and things that needed to be accomplished on the project.

For a moment, I honestly wondered if he had called the wrong person.

Why was he telling me all of this?

Why was he calling me?

But he hadn’t called the wrong person.

He wanted to meet with me. There were hundreds of outstanding items that needed to be worked through, and he understood parts of the process that I didn’t. We began talking about how we could sit down together, sort through them, determine what actually applied, figure out who owned what, and start getting things accomplished.

Somewhere during that conversation, something occurred to me.

I hadn’t gone looking for this opportunity.

I had simply been trying to do my job well.

For months, I’ve tried to show up. Ask questions. Meet with people. Raise concerns when something doesn’t look right. Follow through when something needs to be completed. Admit when I don’t understand something and find someone who does.

Nothing particularly extraordinary.

Just trying to do the next right thing.

And perhaps that’s how some doors open.

Not with a big announcement.

Not because we were standing around waiting for an opportunity.

Not because we knew where we were going.

Sometimes the door begins opening while we’re busy doing the work that’s already in front of us.

The phone call today didn’t open the door.

It may have simply been the moment I finally noticed it.

I still don’t know where that door leads.

Maybe it leads to another professional opportunity someday. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe nothing about my title or position ever changes because of it.

That’s okay.

Because I already know where the door leads tomorrow.

It leads to a classroom.

I’m going to have an opportunity to sit beside someone who understands a process better than I do and learn from him.

There are things I understand only partially today that I should understand better tomorrow.

That excites me.

It also reminds me that opportunities aren’t always rewards. Sometimes they’re lessons.

Being invited into a room doesn’t mean I’m the smartest person in it. Sometimes the greatest value of being invited into the room is discovering how much there still is to learn.

And when I learn it, I don’t want to keep it to myself.

I want to take what someone teaches me and pass it along.

If I can save another person months of figuring something out because somebody was willing to spend a few hours teaching me, then the lesson becomes bigger than me.

Maybe that’s part of leadership too.

Leadership isn’t always standing in front of people with the answers.

Sometimes it’s sitting beside someone with more knowledge than you, listening carefully, asking questions, and being humble enough to learn.

Then, when the opportunity comes, you turn around and become the teacher for somebody else.

I don’t know what waits on the other side of this particular door.

And maybe I don’t need to know.

I only know what I’ve been trying to do:

Keep showing up.

Keep learning.

Keep doing my best.

Keep doing the next right thing.

And trust God with where those steps eventually lead.

Sometimes we spend so much time looking for the next door that we fail to realize one is already opening.

Today, I think I noticed one.

Tomorrow, I’m going to walk through it.