Every day, when you step out the door to go to work or on an appointment, or to take the kids to school or the park, or when you’re at home working or cooking or cleaning, if you’re praying as you do so, you’re going to “the market,” so to speak, and you should take along a pretty big “basket” of faith and expectancy for God to work in and through your life to fulfill His purposes. Through our prayers we create a vacuum for God to work, and we should expect that He is going to respond according to His will.
The key is doing. Staking out the land and catching the train of golden opportunities. Being flexible and willing to change as needed—whether that means changing yourself, changing your plans, or changing your schedule.
Here are a few concrete actions we can take:
Have faith
Faith and trust in God and a willingness to follow where He leads. When we ask God for opportunities and open doors, He will not fail to bring them along in His time. Thank Him for them and then actively pursue them—even if they are new, different, or unexpected.
Begin
To follow in the direction God leads us, we’ve got to be willing to try new things and follow through. We have to show God that we mean business and we’re serious. If you do that, you can bet your bottom dollar that He is going to come through, sweep away the obstacles, and do over and above His part of the bargain.
Recognize opportunity
Some of the opportunities that come your way won’t pan out. Some of the risks you take won’t bring forth any spectacular or visible fruit, at least not immediately. Sometimes you might have to keep going with something for quite a while before it blossoms.
Sometimes the risks you take might even cost you. Not every single venture or opportunity will be immediately successful. Some might not be successful at all. But it’s better to try something new and discover that it doesn’t work than to never try anything different or outside the box. It’s better to boldly seize an opportunity—even if you’re not quite sure where or how it’s going to go—than to play it so safe and walk with such hesitancy that you miss the open doors and setups that God wants to engineer.
If you jump at an opportunity and it doesn’t seem to be working well, you can put it on pause and commit it to prayer. If something doesn’t pan out, you can close the door and move on to something else. That’s not failure. That’s experience. That’s trying the new. When opportunities come around, if you hesitate, you might not get a second chance. So don’t be afraid to give new things a try.
Being willing to experiment and try new things is exactly what it takes to be in tune with the needs of today. You have to be able to endure a bit of failure too. Pioneers, explorers, inventors, and entrepreneurs often face setbacks and failures—sometimes many—before they hit their eureka moment. It’s not a bad sign if you don’t strike gold immediately. Finding out where it isn’t can be just as valuable in some cases as finding out where it is!
Seize the moment
What if Lazarus’ family had said to Jesus, “Well now, Jesus‚ we’re not quite ready for Lazarus’ resurrection! We haven’t got his room ready yet, and we’ve got to get his clothes back from the people we gave them to. Wait till tomorrow and we’ll roll away the stone. You can come back tomorrow, Lord, and raise him from the dead.” Jesus would probably have been far gone from there by that time, and it would have been too late.
The secret is following God and moving with His Spirit, which includes being ready to take advantage of His setups. And His setups sometimes defy human logic and earthly conventions, meaning they will happen on God’s timetable, not ours.
* * *
The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
Often, the most extraordinary opportunities are hidden among the seemingly insignificant events of life. If we do not pay attention to these events, we can easily miss the opportunities.—Jim Rohn (1930–2009)
It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.—Whitney Young (1921–1971)
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ’em, “Certainly I can!” And get busy and find out how to do it.—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)