The greatest hindrance to seeing our opportunities is a lack of gratitude for past benefits! As long as we believe that we have gotten where we are because of our greatness, the further from our potential we will slide. We are all products of the graciousness of others in our past, and some in our not so distant past! Gratitude should consist of a constant listing of recognizable blessings that have come into our pathway. Until we can appreciate the contributions of others in our personal lives, we will not find the opportunities that are available.
Opportunities are everywhere …even in prison. The Apostle Paul was chained to a Roman guard and found a confidence in the Lord which helped him excel in proclaiming the Gospel in ways he had not researched and with results he could not have anticipated. Most people in Paul’s situation would have focused on one thing: getting out of prison. Paul took a different approach. He believed that in every circumstance of life, he could be successful in presenting the Gospel to someone that he could have otherwise never had an influence.
Author Hal Urban once wrote, “Once we accept the fact that life is hard, we begin to grow. We begin to understand that every problem is also an opportunity. It is then that we dig down and discover what we are made of. We begin to accept the challenges of life. Instead of letting our hardships defeat us, we welcome them as a test of character. We use them as a means of rising to the occasion.
Pastor Joane pointed out that the Chinese word for “crisis” means “danger” or “opportunity”. Every true challenge can be an opportunity for failure or an opportunity for advancement.
Here are two ways to see and seize opportunity:
First, search for the gold in every problem. Look for ways to leverage the situation, turning problems into possibilities.
Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame tried many tasks in his life. He served as a steam engine stoker, an insurance salesman, and a gas station operator. When faced with retirement and the reality that he was destined to try to make ends meet from a social security check, he remembered his mother’s recipe for chicken and bought his first case of chicken and a white suit. He began selling his famous chicken from his roadside restaurant in North Corbin, Kentucky during the Great Depression. His patented method of cooking his chicken was in a pressure fryer. He began selling franchises and we all have eaten “the rest of the story”.
Chick-fil-A’s founder Truett Cathy also understood the importance of turning impossibilities into I’M Possible. Cathy once said, “When we respond to unexpected opportunities, we often find ourselves richly blessed. This Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich itself was born in the wake of an unexpected opportunity. When one of my first two restaurants burned to the ground, I found myself with time on my hands and the availability to develop a new recipe.”
Whatever circumstances we face, we simply need to ask God to guide us toward new doors of opportunity.
Second, act with courage in the face of fear. When opportunity is staring us in the face – and we are experiencing the fear accompanying it – the need for courage becomes real. That is the time to act and lead. We can not just see the opportunity; we must also courageously seize it!
Our dad was born 98 years ago. He and Mom married very young – he was barely 19 and she was almost 16. Before their ninth anniversary, they had six babies, and I was number three. Three days before their fifth baby was delivered, Dad was involved in a critical auto accident. What I remember of it was that we children were allowed to go into ICU to see our dad. I was three. The oldest of us offspring had to move to Arkansas to live with our grandparents and Mom, with a newborn, had to go to work. Dad survived being thrown out of a truck and hitting his head on the concrete curb, but he had restrictions. With the funds from that wreck, we were able to buy our first home, mortgage free. After six or seven years, we traded that home for 10 acres and an excuse of a house. We built a nice four-bedroom home with lumber derived from our tearing down an old house and pulling all the nails out of the used wood. After six years, we purchased 46 acres and built a new four-bedroom home. And never did we have a mortgage, because of the blessings of the Lord and our parents’ courage to face every obstacle and see it as an opportunity!
Today each of us are faced with great challenges. To be successful, we must search for the gold hidden within that challenge. Then we can put together a plan to seize the opportunity to advance the task and find victory!
