Do you ever feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football? Opportunities appear before you and you take a deep breath and go for it only to have Lucy yank it away at the last minute. So you pick yourself up, brush yourself off and keep on keeping on, waiting for, hoping for another opportunity. Maybe, just maybe, the next time Lucy will forget to yank the ball. Do you ever look at the news and see masses of people and wonder what opportunities they have or have not had? It is so easy to be critical of illegal immigrants but maybe this was their only chance.
Those of us who were born hearing the Gospel often smugly write off the billions who have never heard. Or if they did hear they heard it through us flawed messengers who failed to make it attractive. The Good News is so wonderful when rightly presented. However, our actions so outweigh our words, we nullify attempts to share with others. Instead of being the one trying to kick the football we become Lucy. We are the one who yank it away just when someone begins to consider.
During the time it took to read this far another thousand people died without hearing the Good News. Are they lost? Do they not have an opportunity to rejoice with us on resurrection morning? There is a text in Romans 1 that hints to us there might be many more opportunities in this universe than we know. God can’t be put in our small mental box. He is way too big and far more loving than we. I believe He is the God of opportunities. Lots of opportunities.
Written by Roger Bothwell on October 21, 2011
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org