Opportunity
We do not fight against flesh and blood. The war we are in goes far deeper than that.
Yesterday, I was listening to Debra Green preaching and she mentioned one of the most enlightening things that had occurred in her week. She was trying to type the word ‘Opposition’ into her iphone. But the word it kept offering her was ‘opportunity.’ How great is that?!
There was much talk in Christian circles, a few years ago now, about the word in Chinese for “danger,” being the same as the one for “opportunity.”
Chinese philologist Victor H. Mair of the University of Pennsylvania, calls this popular interpretation a “widespread public misperception.” Whilst he argues that while wÄ“i (å±) does roughly mean “danger, perilous; precipitous, precarious; high; fear, afraid” his argument is that the other part of the word, the polysemous jÄ« (机) does not necessarily mean “opportunity.”
It is much more accurate to say that this is only one of its many possible meanings. These apparently include “machine, airplane; suitable occasion; crucial point; pivot; incipient moment; opportune, opportunity; chance; key link; secret; cunning.” Mair suggests that jÄ« in wÄ“ijÄ« is closer to “crucial point” than to “opportunity.”
I don’t mind what it means! But I love this principle that God gives us: that happens to us as a chance to find Him at work.
What are you facing today that could be seen as opposition to what you would like to happen? How could you see that differently? How could it be an opportunity?
My brother Joel was told two days ago that he may have suffered a small heart attack. He is 30. He is in America. He is in hospital with severe pains. I prayed about this and just got a massive sense that this diagnosis was total guff!
I don’t believe for a second that he has had a heart attack. I believe God has broken into the “machine” of his life to offer him a crucial point, an opportunity of change and a repositioning of his priorities.
On my music stand right now as I am typing is the song “You’re the God of this city”….
“Greater things have yet to come
and greater things are still to be done…”
Raise your eyes above the natural! Raise your faith above your experience! Raise your game above your expertise! None of that can stop God doing impossible, improbable, marvellous and wonderful things in your life. FACT.
There is NO-ONE like our God! His plans for us are AMAZING!!
Hold on tighter and see.
Join with me and pray this prayer over yourself today:
God of tiny ladybirds and enormous mountain ranges, of humming bird wings and the smell of fresh cut grass, thank You for Your plans for little me! Thank you that You love who I am and what I am. Thank You that Your plan for me is to prosper my soul and give me hope and a future, assured of Your comforting, challenging presence. Whatever doubts creep into my mind today, chase them away with Your ever-persuing love and mercy. Teach me to stand firm and hold on to the truth that Your love never gives up on me. May every opposition that seeks to stop me in my tracks be turned around into Your opportunity to show Yourself in these days. May today be a crucial day for me.
Amen.