When was the last time you stopped to consider your current reality? When was the last time you gave intentional thought and reverse engineered the events that led you to where you are in this very moment? For me, it was Friday of last week on our drive to Auburn after my wife took possession of her newest career car. I've lost count of how many cars she has earned now (I'm sure she will remind me after she reads this post) but I know my children were still in a car seat and a booster... about the age shown in the older photo that goes with this post... when she earned her first one. And when I think back to that time in the life of our family, I keep coming back to a phrase I have repeated many times since those days. Circumstance creates opportunity.
Our circumstances in that moment were not good. At least... our financial circumstances weren't. I had been unemployed for the better part of a year... a year during which we had a baby and moved to a city where we knew almost no one so I could take a part-time job as a worship leader (a job that still wouldn't pay all the bills, but it paid more than what I was making in that moment). I was still driving the car I got when I graduated high school (a 1992 black Mitsubishi eclipse... not really conducive for a car seat) and while we had traded Monica's Chevy Cavalier up for a used four-door sedan, we were having trouble with it going dead at the most inopportune times. It became a game I would play with my son... to see if we could gun it through the four-way stops without stalling or sputtering or stopping altogether. Sometimes we would hold our hands up like we were riding a roller coaster and when we made it, we cheered loudly as though we had just scored a touchdown (because in my mind we had). Thank goodness children are easily entertained and don't always know to be concerned with all that accompanies trying to be a responsible adult. Needless to say... we both needed new cars but there wan't money enough to buy even one. Those were the circumstances that created the openness to opportunity for my wife begin a business with the potential to earn the use of a car for free. And now... 18 years later...
I sometimes contemplate the circumstances of those days. I think about how, if life had been comfortable then and if things had been easy... we probably wouldn't be who we are today. I also wonder... if we hadn't struggled through the things we have, would we be where we are today? Would we have been willing to take risks and sacrifice security and safety for the sake of staking claim to the future He had for us? Would we have learned to trust Him like we do or would we have missed the blessings that would be the result of hard times in our lives? I don't know all the answers to the "what-if" questions that never happened, but I do know that circumstances created opportunity that was ours to decide to grab... or not.
I don't know your current circumstances right now. You may be struggling. If so, this moment could hold the discomfort you need that leads you to the opportunity that changes your life for the better. Without the struggle, though, you wouldn't be able to see it and you likely wouldn't be willing to embrace it. You may be really comfortable right now. If so, this moment may be the circumstance that creates complacency that leads to a lack of initiative in the things you know you should be doing but just don't have the motivation. Don't wait for life to get hard before you decide to do the things you know you should do. But wherever you are in your life right now, remember...
God is able to turn every circumstance into long-range good... not to make you happy but to bless you in a way that will fulfill His purpose in you. This kind of thinking requires a new mindset regarding circumstances. It requires a new way of looking at what is good in the moment as compared to what is good for the long game. And it requires a new level of trust in the One who orchestrates every circumstance.
Circumstance creates opportunity. Are you willing to take hold of what He has for you today?
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." - Romans 8:28 (NIV)
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