Opportunists and Victims
I sat down on Monday (as I do every Monday) to talk with our organist/pianist to go through music. It is our routine and it how I start every week in preparation for the next Sunday.
Most Monday's, I'm still suffering from the Sunday hangover (anyone in ministry will understand that phrase) and I haven't quite got my bearings yet in preparing for the next Sunday. But there are those occasional Monday's where Sunday doesn't leave me empty. There are those occasions where Sunday will leave me either hungering or they will leave me frustrated. Then Monday's do not take on the hangover of a Sunday. Monday's instead take on a sense of urgency.
Yesterday, Monday, I was in that place of urgency. I was ready to get right back to work because I had found something or that something had found me. Either way I came to my Monday morning meeting with a sense of urgency, vision, and purpose.
As we were talking Monday, God nudged me. It took me a few moments to articulate what God was nudging me on because it was more a feeling than actual words, but what eventually came out were two words: opportunist and victim.
I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to preach this coming Sunday about opportunists and victims.
Every moment of every day we have choices that are before us. They are choices only we can make. God can use both our poor choices and our good choices to bring about His will. But ultimately whether our choice is a bad one or a good one it is our choice. We have no one to blame for the road we choose, but you know what we do. And, the way I see it, we are living at a time in history where we have more victims than at any other point in history. We have more people who are not willing to take responsibility for their action than maybe at any other point in time in history. And if you do not take responsibility for your actions, you are then blaming someone else for your problems.
On the flip side, there are opportunists. These are people who refuse to play the blame game and they take whatever comes their way and they are going to make the most of what God has given them.
Jesus had many friends during his time on earth. But two of his closest friends were Mary and Martha. One was a victim. The other was an opportunist.
We have come to give a negative spin on the word opportunist today but opportunists are not bad people. Opportunists are nothing more than people who refuse to play the blame game and instead have taken what is before them and made it into something of value. Maybe the reason opportunists are given a bad name today is that their are so many victims who are bemoaning lost opportunities.