Inopportune opportunities
As someone wise once said opportunity knocks at the least opportune time.
This is especially true when it comes to parenting. It is invariably late at night when my daughter will want to have a heart to heart about a big issue. Rachel Jankovic says “Our opportunities to bless our children are often most present when we least feel like it.”
When we are busy or tired or burdened. Or just not feeling it.
If we take Jesus as our example though it is quite a challenge. He took opportunities whenever they arrived. He was seemingly always interruptible. This actually seemed to be quite annoying for his companions and followers at times.
An extreme example of this occurs in the gospel of Mark chapter five. Jairus- a Synagogue leader, a big cheese- asks Jesus to come and heal his daughter who is dying. I think it would be safe to assume this counts as a priority. It sounds pretty important. So Jesus agrees and goes to see the daughter. On the way people are crowding all around and someone in the crowd touches Jesus. Nothing more. But Jesus stops and is desperate to find out who had touched him. His followers cannot understand it: “How can you ask, ‘who touched me?’, look at the crowds!” But Jesus stops and investigates. To such an extent that people come to tell Jairus not to bother with Jesus: his daughter has died.
If the story ended there it would seem like a tale of wrong priorities and a lack of urgency. Tragedy.
But it doesn’t. Jesus still goes to Jairus’ house and actually raises his daughter back to life. Stunning. And then it turns out that the person who had touched Jesus from amongst the crowd was a woman who had been suffering with a crippling illness for twelve years. Simply touching Jesus had healed her. Breath-takingly beautiful.
What do I do with this?
How can I be alive to the opportunities today will throw my way? Framing them as opportunities, not interruptions, has to be a good start. It all depends on my outlook and my focus. If I’m too goal-orientated and self-absorbed opportunities all too often feel like obstacles to sidestep or clamber over.
What interruptions opportunities is God putting into my path today?
