miss

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Don’t Miss Out On Opportunities

Often it’s those hard to orchestrate opportunities that we miss out on. We just think that they would be too hard to arrange, or too many things would need to be moved to make them happen.

don't miss out

This week I delayed on a meeting opportunity because 1. it was going to be difficult to get myself there, and 2. there were seemingly too many things to rearrange.

It’s not the first time I’ve missed out on something that seemed to be too hard for me make arrangements for … 

In my late teens there was a rock concert I wanted to go to, but lack of money and work schedule seemed insurmountable obstacles to me at the time. The money issue was over approximately $20, which now doesn’t seem to be an obstacle at all.

This week I was invited to a lunch meeting in Toronto, about 2 1/2 to 3 hours away from where I live. It would be a full day for me with a good 6 hours of it spent driving.

My first thought was that if I could combine the meeting with something else, I would go. However, those other plans never materialized. So in my head I declined the meeting because I thought it was too difficult to arrange and would put too much pressure on me for the rest of the week.

In the past I have figured out ways around road blocks …

I remember taking my youth group on a plane from Edmonton to Toronto for a major youth conference. On our return flight, somehow the airline decided it would be better to have our group of 22 teenage kids with two adults all together in one spot on the plane … so they put us in first class. 

There was only one problem. My students were seated randomly, not necessarily with the friends they wanted to sit next to. 

The easiest thing would have been to say, “You’re in first class; be happy and sit down.” Instead, I listened to their requests (for some this was their second flight ever; the first being our flight to Toronto). 

I stood in the aisle and started playing a human version of that old sliding tile puzzle game. I started moving people around … “You get up; stand here. You move there. Now you trade seats with her” … and so on. 

In a matter of a couple of minutes I had our whole crew sitting where they wanted, and with who they wanted to sit with. 

Everyone was happy. 

Sometimes the obstacles that overwhelm us and cause us to miss out are simply obstacles that we have not given enough thought to working around.

Oh, and my meeting this week in Toronto? I was able to RSVP at the last minute and attend the lunch. I moved an appointment and rearranged my work week to ease the pressure. 

Often those seemingly insurmountable obstacles are not insurmountable if you make a little effort, rather than turning back at first sight.

Here’s the thing: God may have asked you to do something that seems insurmountable. The temptation is to say “no” or turn back. Or maybe the idea of Christ loving you enough to die for you is more than you can get your head around. Resist dropping the opportunity before you and ask God to help you continue. The way forward may be easier than you first thought; just put some energy towards it. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What obstacle are you facing that you need to ask God for help with? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Don’t Miss The Window Of Opportunity

The other day we missed the window of opportunity and it created a whole new scenario for us for the next five hours.

We actually had two chances to make it through a winter window before our travel plans were severely hindered … but we got caught in a winter storm and it wasn’t even winter yet. 

The middle of November is not usually snow weather, but we can get some weak, wet flurries that might stick to the grass but not usually to the roads. 

This time it did.

My wife, Lily, and I were leaving the Muskokas after a conference. Though there was snow on the ground, the roads were clear and it hadn’t snowed up north in several days. 

As we drove south to Toronto, and the landscape changed from white to green, I thought how nice it was to have the grass in view again. 

But I was too hasty. 

We stopped at an outlet mall to buy me a pair of shoes, which proved to take longer than we had originally thought. 

That was where we missed our first window. If we had just driven straight home, I think we would have beaten the snow storm all together.

But sometimes you don’t have the foresight you need for the situation.

I remember listening to a pastor talk about visiting an elderly woman in his church, way back in the 50’s.  

He said she had fed him coffee and a piece of pie. Unfortunately the pie was rancid and there was no way he could force that pie down his throat. 

He looked around for a way to dispose of the pie without the woman noticing. He was sitting by a window that was open at the time, and he thought it would be the perfect solution.

The pastor waited for the woman to go back into the kitchen and, as soon as she did, he threw the pie out the window. 

Unfortunately, he hadn’t noticed that there was a screen in the window. 

You could say he missed the window on that occasion! … and I would have loved to have heard his explanation. 

The first thing you want to do is make sure there is an open window. 

In our case, we never checked to see if we needed to take the window of opportunity and get out of Dodge to dodge the storm. Instead we decided to meet our daughter for dinner. 

That was the second window we missed. 

If we had have gone straight home after the outlet mall, we might have been mildly delayed by the storm. But when we committed to having dinner with Karlie, there didn’t seem to be any reason not to stay a little longer in Toronto.

Well, we missed the second window and as dinner went on I kept looking outside at the snow that had started falling and thinking, “We really blew it. We should have taken those windows.” 

As a result of missing them, it was one long, slow and treacherous three plus hours drive home.

Here’s the thing: There are many windows in life that we can either take or miss. Three important windows not to miss are: taking Christ up on His gift of salvation – none of us knows when that window for us will close; taking the way out when temptation urges us to sin; and forgiving quickly because it just gets harder to do it later. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What window of opportunity do you need to act on right now? Leave your comments below.