I was watching the Michael Jackson This Is It DVD the other day, marveling at how incredible all the musicians were. I asked Holly, “How good would you have to be to play in Michael Jackson’s band?”
“You’d have to be the best,” she said.
Of course, she’s right. It would have been any pop musician’s dream come true to have played with the king. And if you ask any serious aspiring musician how hard they’d be willing to work for a guaranteed spot playing for someone of that caliber, they’ll say, “I’d do whatever it took.”
But that’s not the way it works. You don’t get to the peak by putting in massive amounts of work once the opportunity comes your way. That kind of opportunity only comes your way after you’ve put in massive amounts of work.
How many years do you think Michael Jackson’s guitar players played in their bedrooms before they ever played their first public gigs? How many club gigs do you think they played before they ever played an arena? How many arena tours do you think they played supporting opening acts before backing a headliner? And all of this with no guarantee that the opportunity of a lifetime would ever arrive.
David fought lions and bears privately before he took down Goliath publicly. Essentially, he was training for an opportunity that he didn’t even know existed at the time. He’d never heard of Goliath. He just knew that there was a calling on his life, and he needed to be faithful with today’s responsibilities to prepare for tomorrow’s opportunities.
I love Proverbs 18:16: “A man’s gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men.”
Most of us spend our lives waiting for someone to make room for our gifts…for opportunity to come knocking at our front door. According to this verse, your gift makes room for you. It’s by actively operating in your gift that you get the opportunity to ascend to the next level of influence. The people who get the once-in-a-lifetime opportunities aren’t the people who wait for them to come, then prepare.
They are the people who embrace God’s preparation process long before the opportunities ever arrive. And when that moment materializes, they realize…this is it…
1 comment:
This was really good. I think that Christians especially (including myself) have the entitlement problem. When really we need to be working so hard (blood, sweat-tears..) to go after what God has put inside us. Instead we tend to say God will do it. I have found over and over that God meets us, He doesn't do it for us.
I think this guy is just stating the real truth. Well done.
Post a Comment