Missed Opportunities

We all have missed opportunities that turn into regret as we look back over our lives. The older you get, the less tread you have on your tires, the more the missed opportunities are illuminated. Missed opportunities can haunt you.

Recently, our company purchased a subscription to a software. Enamored with the product, I showed it to a friend. He immediately stopped in his tracks, his jaw hitting the floor. As the story goes, his friend from college had started the company many years ago. He recalled how hard his friend had worked on the company, but they thought it was all fruitless. In fact, this young entrepreneur had offered jobs to a few of them to manage certain parts of the business. They all rolled their eyes, refusing the offers. The company went public about 15 years later, raking in an estimated one billion dollars.

The above story can definitely be classified as a missed opportunity, but the greatest missed opportunities are the simple, daily interactions that never happen. No doubt, relationships will be the biggest regret, lost opportunity in each of our lives.

For example, how many times have you heard the story of the dad dropping his daughter off at college. The previous unemotional father loses it upon leaving because of how the time has flown by and all the “should haves” are recalled. I am nearing this inevitable emotional outburst.

No doubt, the missed opportunities in relationships are abundant. The apologies left silent, the relationships with spouses or friends that are quietly shelved day after day, the time that is not spent with kids, maybe the person that you didn’t visit or call until it was too late. As I type these, my mind is flooded with missed opportunities.

In Luke 4, the Bible talks of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. He is 30 years old, recently baptized by John, tempted in the desert for 40 days, then begins his ministry in Galilee. One of the first places he goes is Nazareth, where He announces that He is the one written about in the Old Testament.

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:16-21

The crowd knew the Old Testament. Many were probably scholars of the book. So, for Jesus to walk in and make this claim was blasphemy. In fact, later in the story, the people try to end his life.

When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away. Luke 4:28-29

I wonder if anyone ever recognized this as a missed opportunity. After all, after Jesus died on the cross, crazy things did happen, like an earthquake. It seems people would have recognized something significant had taken place. So, I wonder if 3 years later at the dinner table, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, if that day in the synagogue was recalled and discussed by a family. A “we missed it” conversation.

Missed opportunities will indeed inevitably happen. But today, we can do battle with the potential regrets. Not the big missed business opportunities that I mentioned earlier, but the most important missed opportunities in life, relationships.

Be it a family member or a friend, we can make the most of every relationship today. We have the freedom to have that discussion, to make that call, to apologize, to build the bridge, to focus on that person. Be intentional with your good intentions.

Additionally, we can make the most of the most important relationship today, God. This is the unending relationship, and, perhaps, the one that is ignored the most. But the awesome thing about Jesus is that it is never too late or too difficult.

A great way to make the most of the relationship immediately is spending time with Him in His Word. The Bible is an unending reservoir of insight. One will never know the true value of spending time in His Word by listening to others talk about it. It is a personal gift.

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