These Factors Will Make You Miss Out.

None of us wants to miss out on big opportunities, if we could, we would grab them as soon as they surface. The problem, however, is that God’s big opportunities do not look like opportunities when they come; usually, they come as an instruction that requires obedience or a test of character which when passed, opens a door we never saw standing there.

God has a glorious plan for each one of us and while they start off as His promises to us, He brings them to pass when we stay in His will. I have observed from studying the Scriptures and from my personal walk with God, that the following are ways we miss being partakers of God’s big events.

1.) Jealousy or Envy: This could show up as the “why him?” or “why her?” syndrome, whereby someone questions another person’s blessings. It could also show up as when a person seems to know what God should do in the lives of other people better than He does. Sometimes, it’s someone who is a colleague who is envious and feels that some persons don’t deserve what they have. At other times, it is someone who is superior but is determined to keep another person down and does not realize that the person’s elevation may be the reason God gave them the influence that they have. There’s always a reason behind every blessing and while God wants us to be fine, the bulk of the blessing is usually for others than for ourselves. This was the eyeopener in Mordecai’s admonition to Queen Esther when he told her that she may have been made Queen for such a difficult time as they were in, and she quickly responded in Godly fear and intervened in the situation as she could- we all need a Mordecai in our lives, don’t we?

Potiphar’s wife abused her position and all she wanted to do rather than groom Joseph, was to sleep with him. I pray largeness of heart for my reader today, such that you will be found a tool for God’s blessings to flow to others. If you don’t recognize jealousy or envy in your thought, you can misbehave and still have a justification for it. It can be that dangerous, ask Joseph’s brothers who sold him as a slave to Egyptians, because of envy, they said ‘let’s see if he is the only one that can dream and how all those dreams will come true when we sell him off’. No matter how good what God is doing in the life of another person is, if God is not doing it for us, we cannot convert them to ours, what we can do is wait, knowing that God is faithful to do ours too.

2.) Delayed Obedience: Let us imagine for a moment, that Mary the mother of Jesus told the angel that announced that she would birth Jesus ” I like the idea of being the mother of Jesus, but please let this whole plan just wait till I am married, at least people will think that the child is Joseph’s”. While it seems like a valid suggestion, Mary would have missed the point of the visitation if she gave such excuses, however, she dammed the consequences and allowed God’s glory to be revealed through her by dying to self. Also, imagine that Noah postponed the building of the ark, do you think God would have postponed the flood as well? He would have perished in disobedience, though a righteous man. Obeying God promptly is always in our benefit, the opportunity to do so will not always be in our faces.

3.) Trying to make sense of it first: Imagine that God told the builders of the Titanic, the great ship, that it would sink? They would have said maybe another ship could sink but not this one because they were confident that they made it with durability in mind. However, the Titanic collided with an iceberg that affected many of her compartments such that she could not stay afloat. The point here is that things are not always the way they appear but whatever God says of a thing, so it is even if it doesn’t appear so.

You cannot afford to trust the obvious more than you trust God. Whatever God says, just give it time and it will unfold and you will realize that God is truly omniscient. Obeying God this way has saved many people from dealing with the wrong person in business or getting married to a deceiver. I cannot count how many times God has saved me this way. Sometimes, the Holy Spirit helps in addressing the right issues when counseling and leading people. I have had to tell myself while learning about this aspect of walking with God, that ‘since I have known how God speaks to me in other matters and circumstances, why do I want to doubt Him in this particular one, just because it doesn’t look like it?’

There’s no limit to how far the Holy Spirit can be involved in our lives, if we let Him.

4.) Conferring with flesh and blood: That which is flesh is flesh and that which is Spirit is Spirit. There are decisions that I made in the past that did not seem wise to people but I took such steps because I was obeying God. There were times that I would tell a concerned person “you are a Christian too and you have the Holy Spirit in you, go and ask God if He told me what I did” and they would come back and say that God said they should leave me, that it’s not their concern and that was usually the end of the matter. For each time we seek approval of man to do God’s bidding, we miss out on an opportunity to partake of His glory. Remember, it is you who will give account to God for every instruction He gives you.

Every story we read of in the Bible, where God did a great thing in the life of a man, their faith seemed like foolishness to other men and that is always the case. His thoughts are higher than ours. Mary did not confer with even Joseph because the matter was a God-matter and she needed no one’s approval as regards what God was set to do with her life. Noah was probably one of the most courageous because he built in the view of everyone and what he built could easily be a daily object of ridicule but he kept at it.

My dear brothers and sisters, God has great plans for you and I pray that every decision you make will align you with the manifestation of that plan in Jesus’ name.