Making the Most of Every Opportunity

Using What We Have, in the Time We Have 3.29.22

Perhaps you can relate to the above image, I know I can. When I was a kid we were outside all the time. Basketball, baseball, backyard football, riding bikes, playing neighborhood tag, walking to the local convenient store, running the playground, or simply hanging out while we determined our next adventure. Such a simple time of life. I was fortunate to have a great group of neighborhood friends in both Ohio and Florida. So many vivid memories. Evenings, weekends, and of course, daily play during the summer. No phones, very few video games, just the fun we created together, and it lasted for hours. Sure, there were times when we were bored, but we were bored together. Rarely would we cut our time short. Typically, the fun would end when a parent would ring the proverbial dinner bell, most often a name being shouted through the neighborhood – and frequently more than once! Then, one day, I did it for the last time, but I didn’t know it.

My children had a very similar experience in their early years. When we moved to Tennessee, we were fortunate to purchase a home on a cul-de-sac. Little did we know at the time, but the neighborhood was filled with kids. I mean to the brim. While actually level, it seemed that our street flowed down hill, ending in our cul-de-sac, as neighborhood activity seemed to gravitate our way. Many of the kids in our immediate proximity were around the same age, and when the weather was favorable, all were outside. Parents would come out as well, visit together, sit on front porches, and often participate in play with the kids. My kids learned to play sports with these friends, threw the baseball with neighborhood Dad’s, created Star Wars plays, ate popsicles, attended each others birthday parties, celebrated holidays, and so much more. Years later, we moved across town, and my kids had played with these friends for the last time, but they didn’t know it (LoNo always!). I watched my kids play with their friends for the last time, and I didn’t know it.

This week, I received a surprise call from a friend. She was one of the above special neighborhood friends. We raised our kids together and she and her husband attended church with us, but we had not spoken in several years. She was calling to let us know that one of the other neighborhood Dads died unexpectedly. I could hardly believe it. I had not seen this friend in years, but to think that he was gone was shocking. This friend had a significant impact on me and our entire family. He and his wife hosted several neighborhood gatherings, backyard movie nights, front porch debriefs in the evening. He had a big personality and he was so much fun to be around. He was the consummate host, welcomed everyone, and loved our kids well. He was so much fun to be around. He taught me a great deal about relationships and hospitality, and I am better for having known him. His loss is a loss for the world, especially those that had the chance to know him. One day I had my last conversation with him, but I didn’t know it.

Boy, I’d love to be able to visit with my friend again. There is so much I’d love to catch up on, and so many topics I’d love to discuss, but I let time pass me by, I missed my opportunity. Time is a formidable foe, fooling us into thinking we have all of it we’d like, when in reality it is an indomitable wave, relentlessly pressing forward, crashing on the shore, slowly stealing often unnoticeable ground. Consider Paul’s admonition and warning from Ephesians 5, “¹⁵ Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,¹⁶ making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” The days are evil, and if we are wise, we will watch how we live and make the most of the opportunities we have. We can’t afford to wait or we may miss a last opportunity, and we won’t even know it.

If you are anything like me, you frequently defer to the future. I’ll do it tomorrow, or I’ll do it next week, next month, or even, I’ll do it at some point. Candidly, there are so many things that have been placed on that list. Long ago I memorized a quote from Ben Franklin, “don’t put off until tomorrow, what you can do today”. Even though I know this by rote, it doesn’t always inform my actions. We find a similar directive in James 4, “¹³ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.¹⁷ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. This world is not our home, our citizenship is in heaven. We are here on temporary assignment (a little while), and our opportunities are limited by this unyielding constraint. I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to squander my limited opportunities on the distractions and enticements of this world. I know the good I ought to do – I must do it. One day will be my last day on this earth and I will go home to the place He has prepared for me. That day will come, and there will have been so many lasts, but I won’t know it. I plan to make the most of the time I do have, how about you?

In Him,

Andy