Opportunity

Sometimes we miss an opportunity because it looks too different than what we expected.

We pray for an open door to share God's love with a co-worker, then find ourselves stuck in an elevator while we're running late to a meeting -- and our thoughts stuck in the flesh rather than the Spirit. We ask God to change our nation and the leader chosen at the next election is everything we thought we were trying to eliminate. We seek transformation for a people group and then hear of a tragic natural disaster.

Thomas Edison said, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work." In the work of the kingdom, we could paraphrase that by saying "Opportunity is missed by most Christians because it comes dressed in hardship and looks like suffering."

For whatever reason, God doesn't package His opportunities in silver boxes with red bows. Instead, the doors He opens for us often are rough-hewn, with splinters attached. And so we balk, and miss the opportunity.

I praise God for His sovereignty. He makes sure His work gets done, in spite of us! He places the same opportunity before us in different ways until we "get it"; or He puts the need on someone else's heart; however He does it, His work gets done. But I want to be a vessel for Him, with all opportunities fully realized, don't you?

We'll only get there by His grace. As we fall more in love with Him, trust Him and walk in the Spirit more and more, we'll find that our hand reaches for the rough door faster than it used to. We see the tarnish on the silver paper and the fraying on the red bows. And we realize that behind the door, for all the apparent suffering, lies "joy unspeakable and full of glory."

And the half has never yet been told.