There are many projects that I have started that met a brick wall and were never completed. It wasn’t that the venture was wrong or bad; the fact that I didn’t have a solution for the problems that came up was the issue. What I thought was a vision or dream turned out to be nothing more than a fantasy. Usually, all I needed was the right counsel or the proper training, but I didn’t get it because I lacked the key ingredient by which most successful enterprises are built. I didn’t have the perseverance to finish.
Sometimes the mustard seed or yeast is simply the dedication we need to complete the task. When the Lord called me to become a minister, I had previously made a decision to make a career in the Navy. I had over five years left on my commitment, so I stopped pursuing the educational activities needed to get promoted and immediately started taking courses in preparation for becoming a minister. When I completed my commitment to the Navy, I brought my wife and three boys to San Antonio, where I studied and finished my basic education for ministry.
The great football coach, Vince Lombardi, used to tell his players, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” Opportunities are all around us every day. The question we all must ask ourselves is this: “Are we prepared or preparing ourselves for those opportunities?”