My Garage Door Serves Jesus

Ben’s garage door opener works every time. He can open the door from half a block away without doing more than applying light pressure to the button on his remote and coasting on in. Ben doesn’t even park his scooter in the garage.

The first time I used my garage door opener, I thought that perhaps it was out of batteries. So I put in a new set and gave it another go. The garage door did the inanimate equivalent of staring at me, annoyed. A bit annoyed myself, I mashed down on the button again with about the same result. I pressed and I pressed, holding the remote in different positions, turning it around, trying to aim toward where I though the sensor might be inside the garage. Still no success. The door’s imaginary expression had changed from annoyed to smug. After pressing the button about fifteen to twenty times, I was finally able to get the door to open. This went on for weeks.

About a month ago I listened to a sermon by a man named Bill Johnson, Pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California. He was speaking about Jesus’ instructions to his disciples in Matt. 10:8 – “heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely you have received, freely give.” These are the things that should mark a disciple of Jesus Christ, whether in the first century, or the twenty-first. They are not necessary for salvation, of course, nor can they earn salvation – Jesus makes that abundantly clear in Matthew 7:22-23. However, Jesus has given us authority to use His name to do each of these things, if we are willing to step out in faith and use it. It is available to us, and more than that, I believe that it is in some ways expected of us.

Well, the sermon both convicted and inspired me, and I began to pray that the Lord would bring me and the Shaffer/Tuma household into this kind of reality as a way of life. On my lunch break the next day, I was sitting on a bench in this little cottonwood park behind my Starbucks store, eating an Uncle Ben’s rice pouch (1200 mg of sodium – yikes!) and spending a few minutes with the Lord. I wanted to read about the miracles that Jesus performed during his ministry on earth, to soak in that stuff and build my faith. I read through Matthew chapter eight, about the leper, the Centurion’s servant and Peter’s mother in law. When I came to chapter nine, I read about the paralytic that Jesus healed, and was struck by verse seven, which says, “when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.” I had to stop there, because the verse so succinctly describes what I was praying about. God has given men, through the power of Jesus’ name, authority over sickness, disease, death, and the demonic. I got pumped. I must have read Matt. 9:1-7 a dozen times.

So there I am, reading all about Jesus’ healing the paralyzed man, when who should roll right up next to my park bench? You guessed it. A paralyzed man in an electric wheelchair. Think God might have been trying to tell me something? Well, all it did was freak me out. I spent the rest of my lunch hour glancing sideways at the poor man, who probably thought I was some punk kid gawking at the wheelchair. As I walked back to the ‘Bucks, I wasn’t sure if I had missed the boat or not, but I repented nonetheless. I asked the Lord for a second chance – I wasn’t ready to step out yet, but I would be next time. And perhaps I would have been, as long as that second chance remained some nebulous event in the distant future. Instead, as I turned off the dirt path onto my store’s patio, I practically tripped over the walking stick of a blind woman. I was almost glad – selfishly, and only for a moment – that she couldn’t see my face; I must have looked like a crazy person.

Clearly, I need the Lord to ease me into the miraculous. I prayed that night that he would start small and build my faith before placing me in front of a real person with a real need. I didn’t really know what that would look like, but I truly wanted to be faithful to Jesus in this area of my life.

So my garage door opener still doesn’t work. I mash and I mash, growing more and more frustrated. Finally, one day, I am late for work and tired of my rebellious remote. Unwilling to fight with it even one more time, I pull out of the garage and narrow my eyes. “Garage door,” I say, “I command you to close in the name of Jesus.” And wouldn’t you know, there went the door. First try. I was surprised; this had never happened before.

When I returned home from work I pulled into the driveway, examined my remote for a moment, and turned to the garage door. “Open in the name of Jesus,” I said aloud, and open it did. For the next week and a half my garage door did exactly as I told it to, the first time. It has only stubbornly refused a few times since then, and when I rebuke it, it is obedient again. Yes, I do realize that my garage door is an inanimate object, with no mind, soul or spirit. Yet, the authority of the name of Jesus has power over all things, living and otherwise, and my garage door is apparently no exception.
I hadn’t known what to expect, but my first lesson in spiritual authority was still very surprising. I did not realize how closely God pays attention to the seemingly insignificant events and trials of our days, and how much he must care about us for these things to matter to him. Who would have imagined that the Almighty God was sitting on his throne, watching me get more and more frustrated with my broken remote? How could I have imagined that God would use that silly little trial to teach me a valuable lesson in spiritual authority, and the power of Jesus’ name. I am anxiously awaiting what the Lord has in store for Lesson Number 2.