Missed Opportunities

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chances, Missed Opportunities, second chance, seize, time

Have you ever missed an opportunity and felt like you’ll never get that chance again?  I know I have.  However, there’s one thing I’ve come to know and that is, it doesn’t matter how many times we fail or how many opportunities we miss, God will never abandon His plan for our lives.  He will always bring us back to His plan and purposes.  We only need to be ready to seize it.

I can remember a time in my life when I was standing right in front of the answer to my prayers and walked away not realizing that this was what I asked God to do.  The opportunity was right there but I missed it.  Of course, after the fact I realized what had happened and regret immediately followed.  Oh!, if I had only realized my opportunity.  But thanks be to God He didn’t let me stay in my regrets.

I began to pray for the Lord to do it again, to put in the right place at the right time but this time to give me the grace to do the right thing.  As I prayed and mediated the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “God will never abandon His plan for your life, if it is in His plan He will bring you to it again.” He reminded me of how Adam missed his opportunity in the Garden of Eden.  Adam was in the right place at the right time and could have taken of the tree of life but He missed that opportunity.  He missed the chance to live day in and day out in unbroken fellowship in the presence of God for eternity. Genesis 3:22 says, “And the Lord God said, behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” Adam could have lived forever in the Garden of Eden in the presence of God but he missed his opportunity.

As I thought about Adam, I wondered about his regret.  I wondered if he’d prayed to God to restore him back to the Garden.  I wondered how close he must have lived to the Garden.  I wondered if he tried to get back to the Garden on his own.  I wondered all these things because that’s what I did and Adam was human just like me. However, as I wondered I saw that God didn’t leave Adam in his regret just like He didn’t leave me in mine.  He spoke to Adam just as He had spoken to me.  He gave Adam a promise of a seed that would one day come and bruise the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15).  God said to Adam what He said to me.  He would not abandon His plan.  God would bring Adam back to Eden. And when Jesus came to this earth, died on the cross and rose again”, Adam regained that missed opportunity.

Therefore, I want to encourage you today if you’ve been feeling regret about opportunities you’ve missed in your life, don’t.  Because God will never abandon His plan for your life.  If it is in His plan for you He will bring you back to it again.  He is a God of restoration and He will restore all things back to you even missed opportunities.

 

 

Wait On The Lord

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life, natural, patience, spiritual, time, wait, waiting

Psalm 27:14

“Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.”

Life is filled with waiting.  We wait nine months to be born, we wait in line at the grocery store, we wait for our food to cook, we wait two weeks to get paid, we wait, we wait, we wait.  But while we are waiting on these things we don’t give up.  We don’t say never mind I’m not pregnant, or throw the food away before it’s done.  No! we wait because we know that at the end of nine months a baby will be born and at the right time the food will be done.  How much more than should we wait on the Lord? Waiting is not for God, He exist outside of time and all things are present with Him.  Waiting is for man because God created time for man.   Whatever God says is done in the present with Him but we wait for it to be manifested in the natural realm.  Waiting doesn’t mean that it’s not done, it just means that it’s moving from the spiritual realm to the natural realm.

So while you are waiting for those things that God has promised you to manifest, rest in knowing that “God is not a man that He should lie; neither the son of man that He should repent; hath He said and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Numbers 23:20). Don’t give up just because you have to wait, remember waiting is a part of this natural life.  Instead, bravely, declare His word over your life and He will strengthen your heart while you wait.

Surely, There Is An End!

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alpha, beginning, end, ending, first, last, omega, recompense, reward, set, surely, time

Proverbs 23:18

“For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.”

Thank God there is an end!  There is an end to poverty, there is an end to sickness, there is an end to loneliness, there is an end to trouble, and there is an end to tribulation and persecution.  There is an end, Hallelujah! There is an end!

Sarah had been barren so many years she had endured the sneers and snide remarks of family and friends.  She had endured the emptiness of her arms, and the silence in her tent instead of the cry of a baby.  But one day it all changed and there was an end. The angel of the Lord said to Abraham “…Is anything to hard for the Lord?  At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.” (Gen. 18:14).  Genesis 21:1-2, “And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken.  For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.”  At the set time there was an end to Abraham and Sarah’s barrenness and their expectation of having a child was fulfilled.

Although Satan was allowed to trouble Job, his time was set and there was an end and God turn Job’s captivity and blessed him with more than he had before.  And although Hannah had to endure being provoked by Peninnah every time she went up to worship, at the set time there was an end and Samuel was born. To Sarah, Job and Hannah it looked like and felt like it would never end but there was a set time. It might look like and feel like to you that your situation will never end, but there is a set time and it shall end and your expectations will be fulfilled.

Jesus said to John on the isle of Patmos “I Am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1:8).  Jesus is the one who sets the time for all things.  And if you will continue to believe on Him you will see your expectations fulfilled.  The enemy’s time was up when Jesus said “It is finished”, he must let go and move out of the way of God’s people.

Hebrews 10:35-37 says, “Cast not away therefore your confidence which hath great recompense of reward. For you have need of patience that, after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise.  For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” 

Don’t give up for surely there is an end to all that the devil is using to resist you.  Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending.  He will end it and your expectations will not go unfulfilled.