THE BLACK DOOR - Earl Nightingale

There is a Middle Eastern story about a spy who had been captured and sentence to death by a General of the Persian Army. The General had fallen on a strange and rather bizarre custom. He permitted the condemn person to make a choice he can either face the firing quad or pass through the Black Door.

As the moment of execution drew near, the General order the spy to be brought before him for a short final interview. The primary purpose which to receive the answer of the doom man to the question which shall it be, the firing quad or the Black Door?

This was not an easy question and the prisoner hesitated, but soon he made it know that he much prefer the firing quad. Not long there after a volume of shoots in the courtyard announced the grim sentence has been fulfilled. The General staring at his boots turned to his aid and said you see how it is with men, they will always prefer the known way to the unknown. It is characteristic of people to be afraid of the undefined and yet I gave him his choice.

What lies behind the Black Door asked the aid?

Freedom replied the General and I have known only a few men brave enough to take it. Like so many of the stories out of the Middle East, this one carries a pretty hefty message.

The first is of course that we will often choose the familiar even if it is undesirable over the unknown, which might be a wonderful opportunity. And second only a few people are brave enough to choose freedom even if they recognized it as freedom. I am not saying we should reject the familiar not by any means, but we should question the familiar. Just because it’s familiar doesn't make it good necessarily or best or the best thing to do.

When you read the story about the Black Door, you probably said to yourself I would of chosen the Black Door, I would had nothing to loose. The firing quad was certain death and most people would say the same thing. But actually faced with the choice would you?

How many doors to freedom have we passed up during our lives because we tend to cling so fiercely to the familiar? How many times have events come about, that you worried and stewed about and even thought calamitous at the time and later proved to be blessings in disguised? Each of them was really a Black Door through which we passed to greater freedom, but at the time we would have chosen to keep things as they were if we have been given a chance.

This is one of those storied that makes for interesting discussion at the dinner table along with friends, tell the story of the Black Door and see what sort of reaction you get.

Remember if we can, that it is often those things that we worry about and most fear, that turns out to be blessing in disguise.