Friday, September 20, 2013

Oppurtunity, misspelled.

Oppurtunity, misspelled.

I’ve always struggled with the word opportunity.
Opportunity.
It just seems to me that second letter “o” should be the letter “u.”
And to the vexing disappointment of Mrs. Williford and all those teachers who deluged into me my love of language, I say there are no rules in the English language. (If so, read and read wouldn’t be reed and red…and eight wouldn’t be ate…but they didn’t ask me.)
But in those dark, dark days before spill cheek, you always got an extra u from my in opportunity. (See what I did there?)
But today…today I’ve been thinking about that beautiful way I used to misspell oppurtunity.

“OPPURTUNITY”

So often, we think of opportunity as a favorable experience.
Brightly colored, glittery and sparkling…
     …Happy gardens, with pinwheel-spinning breezes…
            …Red carpets escorting to open doors.
Opportunities.
But sometimes…
So often times…
Our opportunities are misspelled.
We get oppurtunities instead.
Often times, we only see the thing needing correction…
When what we need is not to correct, but to dive in to.
To dive right on in.
Sometimes, our oppurtunities to be blessed will not be neatly packaged in the perfect three-pieces-of-cello-taped packaging.
What the heck am I saying??
Sometimes!?!
Permission to rephrase?
Rarely will our oppurtunities to be blessed will be neatly packaged in the perfect three-pieces-of-cello-taped packaging.
Most often, we’re going to find our greatest blessings, knee-deep or deeper in the dung of someone else’s doing. In that, “what have I gotten myself into?” moment of doubt and self-doubt and God-doubt.
That smelly, stinky place of why did I pull over? Why did I say you could come in? Why did I invite them here? Why did I agree to meet?
But that’s so often where we find our greatest blessings. That’s where we find it.
Check this out...I had to come to Emory this morning for treatment...on the way up, I saw a homeless man by the road and called him over to my car to give him some money. I said, "God bless you, bro!"
He said, "he already did! He sent you to Atlanta today to bear the name of Jesus. Just like you always do!"

Maybe we shouldn’t always look for the perfect opportunity.
Maybe we should be really cool with the imperfect oppurtunity.