You step up. Your heart quickens. You stare. You fold your hand into a peaceful fist. You lift your newly heavy arm. Your knuckles meet their fate.
Knocking on an unfamiliar door is no easy thing. You know because you've been there before: a new schoolroom, interviewing for a job, selling, on dates, visiting a long-lost friend...
Praying?
That's what happens when we stop believing God wants to hear from us. Praying gets hard. It starts to feel like no one is listening. It feels like we have to earn our way back in. The door looks bigger.
God doesn't work that way. He doesn't want you to think of His door as an unfamiliar and fearful one. In fact, He doesn't want you to think that there's a door separating you and Him at all.
He wants you to come in. He wants you to talk to Him. He wants you to listen to Him. "For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened" (Luke 11:10).
This is what the contemplative path teaches us. God loves us knowing how fragile we are. He unites Himself to us even though we sin. All we have to do is pray and the door will be opened.