Message
It is popularly said that an opportunity lost can never be regained. However, this can only be true when God decides to be silent about such opportunities. The moment God gets involved, lost opportunities can be regained.
In the 1960s, I was a games master at a school called Okeigbo/Ifetedo Grammar School. The school received an invitation to participate in a competition in Akure, one of the state capitals in Western Nigeria, and I got talking with the host school’s games master during the competition. Sometime later, I was admitted into the University of Lagos for my Master’s degree, and I applied to the Federal Government for a scholarship. When a year passed without a response from the Federal Government, I assumed that I didn’t get the scholarship, and I continued paying the fees myself. One day, while walking on the university campus, I saw the games master I had met in Akure over a year earlier. We got talking again, and he told me that he was now working with the Federal Ministry of Education. Then I said to him, “I applied for a scholarship with your ministry, and I did not get any response.” He then told me that he remembered my application because I was the only one who applied for a postgraduate scholarship in mathematics. He said it was a unanimous decision to grant me the scholarship, and that the interview would have been a formality. To cut the story short, he said that he would see what he could do about it, and we parted ways. Two weeks later, I got a letter from the Federal Ministry of Education granting me a full scholarship that was backdated to the day I started my Master's programme. I decree that any good opportunity that you thought had been lost forever will be restored by the Almighty God, in Jesus’ name.
In , Peter had the opportunity to stand for Christ; however, he lost it when he denied the Lord thrice. He was so heartbroken that he decided to return to fishing (). However, Jesus stepped in and gave him another opportunity, as we see in today’s Bible reading. After the Lord’s intervention, the same man, who denied Jesus three times, boldly faced the rulers who killed the Lord and told them that he would not stop speaking about Him ().
Beloved, have you lost valuable opportunities in the past? Ask God for mercy, and He will restore you and help you regain such opportunities.