Seizing Opportunities
From the Series—Chase the Lion
December 13, 2006This evotional continues our Chase the Lion series.
The series is based on the book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. You can purchase a copy online at amazon.com. Or download a free PDF of the first chapter at chasethelion.com.
This series focuses on seven lion chasing skills: defying odd, facing fears, overcoming adversity, embracing uncertainty, taking risks, seizing opportunities, and looking foolish.
Carpe Coffee
This week a friend of mine sent me a Starbucks gift card, but not just any Starbucks gift card. It was an Australian Starbucks gift card. I guess different countries have different gift cards so my friend got one and sent it to me. And I couldn’t help but think about what a worldwide phenomenon Starbucks has become. It is synonymous with coffee and coffeehouses. It seems like there is a Starbucks on every street corner, every terminal, every mall and every hotel in America. Pretty soon there are going to be Starbucks in Starbucks. But I love the backstory.
When Howard Schultz purchased Starbucks on August 15, 1987 it was a small chain of coffeehouses in Seattle, Washington. Nothing more. Nothing less. Howard Schultz said his big, hairy audacious goal was to open a store in Portland, Oregon. A few decades later, there are 11,000 stores in 37 countries with approximately 35 million customer visits every week! And for what it’s worth, Starbucks opens 5 new stores every day 365 days a year.
But Howard Schultz almost passed up the opportunity because it seemed too big. Schultz said it felt like a case of the salmon swallowing the whale. In other words, it seemed like a 500 pound lion. The asking price was $4 million. I love the way Schultz describes the moment in his autobiography, Pour Your Heart Into it:
This is my moment, I thought. If I don’t seize the opportunity, if I don’t step out of my comfort zone and risk it all, if I let too much time tick on, my moment will pass. I knew that if I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity, I would replay it in my mind for my whole life, wondering: What if?
On June 26, 1992—less than five years after Howard Schultz seized the opportunity—Starbucks’ stock went public. It was the second most active stock traded on the NASDAQ and by the closing bell, its market capitalization stood at $273 million. Not bad for a $4 million investment.
Schultz saw an opportunity and he seized it.
Etymology of Opportunity
Nestled into Colossians 4 there is a verse that doesn’t get much air time, but I think it a great definition of spiritual maturity. If all of us obeyed this verse it would revolutionize our lives. Colossians 4:5 says:
Make the most of every opportunity.
This Scripture doesn’t specify how many or how few opportunities. It doesn’t quantify how small or how large the opportunity. We simply need to make the most of every opportunity.
The word translated opportunity in Colossians 4:5 is the Greek word kairos. It refers to a serendipitous window of opportunity.
The English word opportunity comes from the Latin phrase ob portu. In the days before modern harbors, ships had to wait till flood tide to make it into port. The Latin phrase “ob portu” referred to that moment in time when the tide would turn. The captain and crew would wait for that one moment, and they knew that if they missed it, they would have to wait for another tide to come in.
Shakespeare borrowed the idea in one of his famous verses:
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries
On such a full sea we are now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures
Seeing and seizing opportunities is an underappreciated dimension of spiritual maturity. We are surrounded by God-ordained opportunities—opportunities to love, opportunities to laugh, opportunities to give, opportunities to learn, opportunities to serve, opportunities to give. Seeing and seizing those opportunities is at the heart of what it means to follow Christ and be filled with the Spirit.
Now here’s the catch. The old aphorism is wrong. Opportunity doesn’t knock. The giant Egyptian that Benaiah did battle with didn’t knock on the door. He knocked down the door. And the lion didn’t roll over and play dead. Opportunity roars!
Most of us want our opportunities gift wrapped. We want our lions stuffed or caged or cooked medium well and served on a silver platter. But opportunities typically present themselves at the most inopportune time in the most inopportune place. Opportunities often come disguised as big, hairy, audacious problems, but lion chasers don’t see problems. They see 500 pound opportunities!
I love the way the Chinese language captures the two sides of this truth. The word crisis is made up of two characters—one means danger and the other means opportunity.
Problems are opportunities in disguise!
For Such a Time as This
I have a conviction: God is in the business of making sure we meet the right people at the right time. He’s also in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. But here is the catch: the right place often seems like the wrong place and the right time often seems like the wrong time.
Esther is a classic example.
In the 5th century BC, King Xerxes ordered the genocide of the Jews. But through an amazing set of circumstances, God used a beauty pageant to strategically position a Jewish orphan girl named Esther as the Queen of Persia. But no one knew that Esther was Jewish. Not even the king.
So on one level, it seems like Esther is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Your husband has ordered the execution of the Jews. And you’re Jewish. But Esther has a wise Uncle named Mordecai that renewed her sense of destiny.
Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this? Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
According to Persian law, no one could approach the King unless they were summoned—not even his wife. The penalty was death. The only out was if the King raised his scepter thus sparing your life. But if you read the first chapter of Esther, you’ll find that Xerxes had already gotten rid of one wife who didn’t come when he called her. What would keep him from doing the same to a wife that came when he hadn’t called her?
The consensus among historians is that Xerxes was impulsive and unpredictable. During his reign, Xerxes commissioned the building of a bridge, but during construction it was destroyed by a storm. Xerxes ordered that the body of water receive 300 lashes and he had the bridge builders beheaded. Now who’s going to build your bridge?
That adds weight to Esther’s words, “If I perish, I perish.”
I think this situation qualifies as a crisis. The genocide of the Jews is a serious problem. But prayer has a way of turning problems into opportunities! To borrow the phrase from Latin, three days of praying and fasting will ob portu. It will turn the tide!
To make a long story short, the man who instigated this genocide ended up being killed on the gallows he built—poetic justice. And not only did Xerxes give Haman’s estate to Esther. He gave his signet ring to Mordecai.
Prayer Mode
Colossians 4:5 says, “Make the most of every opportunity.” How do we do that? I think the answer is found in verse 2.
Devote yourselves to prayer being watchful and thankful.
The word watchful is a throwback to the Old Testament watchmen whose job it was to sit on the city wall, scan the horizon, and keep watch. They were the first ones to see an attacking army or traveling traders. People who live in prayer mode are watchmen. They see further than others see. They see things before others see them. And they see things other people don’t see.
I honestly think that there are only two ways to live your life: survival mode or prayer mode. Survival mode is simply reacting to the circumstances around you.
If Esther had been in survival mode I think she would have tried to conceal her identity and save herself. But it was three days of prayer and fasting that gave her the moral courage to appeal to the king.
If Benaiah had been in survival mode he would have never chased the lion. He would have run away.
Survival mode is reactive. Prayer mode is proactive.
Your spiritual antenna is up and your radar is on. Prayer puts you in a proactive posture. In fact, the Aramaic word for prayer, slotha, means to set a trap. In other words, prayer helps us catch the opportunities that cross our paths. People who live in prayer mode see opportunities that other people don’t even notice! People who don’t live in prayer mode are opportunity blind.
All I know is this: when I pray providences happen! Prayer is not just an end in itself. It is a means to an end, and the end goal is seeing and seizing opportunities!
The Reticular Activating System
Let me look at one passage on prayer and then try to put prayer in neurological context.
Psalm 5:3 reveals the way David started every day. Prayer was part of his morning ritual.
In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.
One of our greatest spiritual shortcomings is low expectations. We don’t expect much from God because we aren’t asking for much. When my prayer life is hitting on all eight cylinders, I can believe God for everything. But when I’m in a prayer slump, I have a hard time believing God for anything. Low expectations are the byproduct of prayerlessness, but prayer has a way of God-sizing our expectations. David can’t wait to see what God is going to do next because he is living in prayer mode. The more you pray the higher your expectations!
So prayer sanctifies our expectations, but it also creates cognitive categories in our reticular activating system.
Let me explain.
At the base of our brain stem there is a cluster of nerve cells called the reticular activating system (RAS). Our brains are bombarded by stimuli all the time—sights and sounds and smells. If we had to process or pay attention to all the stimuli it would drive us crazy. The RAS determines what gets noticed and what goes unnoticed. Think of it as your mental radar system.
Here’s how it works. When you purchase a cell phone or clothing or a car, it creates a category in your reticular activating system. You notice if someone’s cell phone has the same ring tone don’t you? Because you go to answer yours! You notice if someone is wearing your outfit at the same event. Can you say awkward? And the second you drive your new car out of the lot, it seems like everyone is driving your model car.
That is the function of the RAS. You didn’t have a category for your clothing or ring tone or car before you bought it. But once you made the purchase or downloaded the ring tone or drove out of the dealership, you had a new cognitive category.
So what does that have to do with prayer?
When we pray for someone or something, it creates a category in our reticular activating system. Prayer is important for the same reason goals are important. We need to create categories so we will notice anything and everything that helps us achieve those goals or answer those prayers!
If you want to see and seize God-ordained opportunities, you’ve got to live in prayer mode. You’ve got to lay your requests before the Lord.
One footnote.
Part of me wonders if Benaiah learned how to pray from David. It would make sense wouldn’t it? As his bodyguard, Benaiah never left David’s side. When David went into his prayer closet, Benaiah was the one guarding the door. He couldn’t help but overhear what David was praying about. For that matter, David strikes me as the kind of guy who would pray with his staff. Prayer was part of the warp and woof of David’s daily routine. And I think it rubbed off on Benaiah. I think Benaiah learned how to live in prayer mode from the prayer warrior himself.
We don’t know what was going through Benaiah’s mind when he crossed paths with this lion. But he wasn’t in survival mode. He didn’t see a problem. He saw an opportunity. He didn’t see a coincidence. He saw a providence. He didn’t see an accident. He saw a divine appointment.
He saw an opportunity and he seized it.
Carpe Leo!
The Greatest Opportunity
Spiritual maturity is all about seeing and seizing opportunities. And that is how our spiritual journey begins. It begins by seizing the greatest opportunity we’ll ever be offered—the opportunity to spend eternity with God.
John 1:12 says, “To as many as have received him, to them he gave the power to become the children of God.” All we have to do to seize the opportunity is to receive Christ. In a sense, we agree to terms. And the terms are spelled out in II Corinthians 5:21:
God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.
So here’s the deal. It’s like God says, “Let’s take everything you’ve ever done wrong—all of your spiritual debits—and transfer them to my account. Then let’s take everything Jesus did right—all of His spiritual credits—and transfer them to your account. And then we’ll call it even.”
What a deal. The way we receive Christ is by accepting the offer that is on the table. We simply put our faith in who Christ is and what Christ has done.
We seal the deal via faith.
What wait? Seize the opportunity.
Carpe Christ.