It's All About Opportunity

“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” (Jas 4:17 AV)

The context of this command is the brevity of life.  James reminds us that life is but a vapor.  It is there and then it is gone.  When he tells us to do good when we know it is good to do, he is speaking of seizing opportunity when it presents itself before the opportunity disappears.  This begs a few questions.  Why don’t we do good when we know it is good to do?  Is it because someone else might do it if we do not?  Or, perhaps we think there is plenty of time to do good and therefore, put off until tomorrow what we had opportunity to do today.

 

Space and time do not permit to record all the lost opportunities one might have had in life.  As a hospital chaplain, it was common to hear the words of regret from the lips of someone who was facing their own mortality.  I have heard confessions of failed faithfulness in marriage, of estranged children, of parental neglect.  Confessions of lost job promotions, a financial opportunity that passed resulting in financial hardship, or a career move passed on.  These confessions of missed opportunity are especially hard to accept when they cause damage in their wake.  Time would prohibit me from sharing the many times I had to minister to those who have lost a loved one whom they didn’t know of their salvation.  Or worse, were convinced they died lost.  Inevitably, those left behind wished they had one more opportunity to share the gospel, or worse, wished they had taken the opportunities given. 

The point is: the sin of neglect is not necessarily the goodness of what was available, but rather, the nature of opportunity.  

Opportunity is limited.  Time is limited.  Therefore, if we know something is good and right, then do it; because the opportunity to do it will fade.  It is sin because at time the opportunity arose, we found one reason or another not to take that opportunity.  It is a sin of omission.  Sometimes, those are worse than those of commission.  To say something when something needs to be said.  To do something when something needs to be done.  Neglecting those times means something will fall apart.  Seize the day.  More importantly, seize the opportunity.  Not for what we might get out of it.  Rather, because it is the moral and ethical thing to do.