The tragedy of missed opportunities

What is tragedy?
Tragedy is something regrettable, disastrous, painful.
It is something that none of us will want to experience.
It means sorrow, pain and shame
Opportunity is favourable circumstance.
It is a privilege, an advantage or a chance.
Opportunity can also be taken as a big break, a prophetic message delivered to you among others.
There is a saying that says Opportunity missed can never be recovered.
Nobody wants to miss an opportunity because any opportunity lost is destiny lost or hampered.
Opportunity is locating what works for you.
The substance of a diligent man is treasure
Opportunity is knowing what to produce and knowing what not to produce.
Opportunity is a Revelation given to you that others don’t have.
It is a privilege and a favourable space or allowance given to you to make it above others by God.
God always places opportunity within our grasp.
Having every opportunity to do good, the Bible says we should sieze the chance
Life is a series of opportunities offered and choices made.
At every point in our life, we face different opportunities.
You are what you are today because of the people you meet or you missed.
The danger of missing your opportunity is devastating!

You may play with the opportunity you have now, but you don’t know you are causing a devastating damage to your destiny
When opportunity is lost or missed, destiny derails.
Every success is a direct product of opportunity siezed.
A book that will catch your interest is The Richest man in Babylon
This book will teach you how to make prompt decisions.
You are suffering not because you are under attack but because of opportunities that came your way, but you didn’t seize them
God is watching how you handle opportunities.
Let us look at examples of those who missed their opportunities.
The first man and woman created by God was the first man and woman to miss their opportunity.
And when they missed that opportunity, they were sent out of the garden

If you don’t treat what God gives to you with care, you will lose
Cain:
Genesis 4:7
The evil that Cain was going to bring on Himself, he had the opportunity to terminate it after being counselled directly by God . But instead, he committed murder which led to the destruction of he and his generation. Everything evil was invented by Cain and his children.
Cain was warned. He was being often corrected. He lost the opportunity to correct himself and prevent evil from happening to him and his generation.
Instead, h destroyed himself, his brother and his generation

Lot:
Genesis 12
Lot didn’t have a covenant with God, he didn’t build an Altar, who was lot?
Lot was Abraham’s nephew.
But wherever Abraham went, he went. And as Abraham got richer, he got Richer.
This is because you are a reflection of the company you keep. Then the land could not contain them, so Abraham asked him to choose a piece of land. Lot chose a land towards Sodom.

And so Sodom committed so much sin that Heaven was provoked

Lot lost the opportunities to secure himself with Abraham but he didn’t.

When a branch is cut off from the tree, it will wither and die. John 15:5
When you disconnect from the man that God has approved to teach you knowledge, you become stupid and foolish.

People of Sodom:

They had the opportunity inspite of their wickedness even when the angels came visiting. Instead of the men of Sodom to fall at the feet of the angels, they asked the angels to come out so they can rape them.
There are people that can no longer be saved because they chose to sell their soul to evil.
They had the opportunity to be saved and reversed, but they have already been sold to evil and wickedness.

Esau:
Esau, by nature, was supposed to be the first born, but by Covenant , he wasn’t the first born.
Instead of Esau to season his life by seizing opportunities, he lost opportunities and messed up his life.
When you have an attitude to kill and destroy, you have the Esau’s spirit.

They put men’s department in your care, you kill it, they put women’s department in your care, you kill it, then you have Esau’s spirit.

When it is time for the Blessings to go round,your ineffiencies and inadequacies will make you to lose it when the time comes.
What you don’t plant can never grow.
This is where some leaders in the Church miss. We want point and kill but we don’t want to nurture something. It is tedious to grow something, but it is easy to destroy something.
If Jacob didn’t have sheep that he nurtured and cared for, he would have missed his father’s blessings.

Vashti:
Vashti was the queen. Her husband was happy and wanted to flaunt his beautiful wife, he invited his wife and the woman refused to turn up.

Then his special advisor warned him about the implication of Vashti’s disobedience. The king removed Vashti from her position and for two years , the competition was open for every virgin girl. Esther was qualified and the king found favour in her.
Esther was a slave but was nurtured like a princess by Mordecai.
It would not have been possible for Esther to get to the throne of Vashti was still the queen.
Everytime opportunity is missed by somebody, opportunity is gained by somebody else
One man’s fall is another man’s rise.
One man’s lost opportunity is another man gained opportunity.
When you give hundred naira instead of a thousand naira out of the ten thousand naira God gave you, you will remain at that level but God will raise someone you will never expect to rise.

Orpha and Ruth: They had the same experience, one became childless and one became a mother.
Orpha could have stayed with Naomi even if she wasn’t going to get married.

Ruth stayed with Naomi even when Naomi was a nobody at that time.

Naomi ran away from Israel to Moab. But those who remained in Israel were remembered by God and then Naomi came back with nothing but two widows.

Be careful when you make irrational decision because you think that is the rational thing to do.
People now go to Church for marriage, for money or for even Contracts!
They make you an elder in the Church and then you become arrogant.
That is a blown opportunity
When you are supposed to be a help to your pastor but you become a thorn in the flesh, you have blown away that opportunity to become right with God.

Lot’s wife: The simplest thing Lot’s family were to sacrifice was not to look back. But as they running, Lot’s wife remembered her riches at home, she turned back and turned to a pillar of salt.
There are so many people who are figure heads and not figures. They looked back in sin and inquity and because they refused to listen to instructions, they lost their opportunity.

I wish our brethren can sit down and retrospect.
May the shame we have seen or known be terminated.
May the Lord bring us back to where we lost it so we can restart.

King Saul:
Instead of Saul to take advantage of his opportunity, he became arrogant and proud.

Gehazi:
He had the opportunity to have four folds of Anointing of both Elijah and Elisha. But he lost it to greed.
Gehazi worked closely with the most powerful prophet to walk on the face of the earth.
Because of Gehazi’s greed, Elisha died with his Anointing. And he was buried improperly.
There was no committed person to bury Elisha properly.
Then, a man died and was about to be buried, due to the arrival of their enemies, they threw the dead body into the unmarked grave which was Elisha’s.
When the dead body touched the carcass of Elisha, he became alive and started running after those who buried.

2nd Kings 13:20-21
Because of Gehazi’s greed, he ended up with Leprosy.