Divine opportunity. This term comes up for Christians a fair bit – but what does it actually mean?

For me, I used to think that it was just praying and asking God for an opportunity to “pop up” in my conversations with people so that I could tell them about God. But was that really just it?

Agreeing to meet up with a new friend under the pretext of finding a “divine opportunity” to share my faith made me realise how my concept of the whole thing might just be a well-hidden disguise of appearing obedient or even holy before God. Go and make disciples, right? Honestly, I was probably never going to see this person again, and had little intention to.

Divine opportunity means nothing without divine intention.

And of all the times I’ve prayed for a divine opportunity, I never did share the Gospel. It wasn’t because there was no real opportunity to, I just didn’t end up sharing because I expected God to make it so obvious to me that I wouldn’t have to look out for it. The moment would just plainly present itself, such as the person suddenly asking me about Christianity.

In my mind back then, if God didn’t make it super obvious, it wouldn’t be my fault.

But this is how I’ve come to understand divine opportunities: They arise when I intend and purpose from the beginning to share my faith. It’s about constantly having that at the front of my mind, rather than mindlessly drifting through conversation and realising only at the end that I forgot to take the opportunity at an appropriate point.

I recently met a sweet lady, J, and made friends with her. The first time we met, I didn’t bring up the topic of God at all. I really loved hanging out with her and knew I needed to share with her about Jesus, so that she would at least get to know about Him. I wanted to share it with her.

So I prayed for an opportunity to talk to her about my faith, and at our second meeting I kept that intention in mind. With this intention, I realised that there were actually many opportunities to lead the conversation to God naturally, which indeed happened.

Also in my mind, was a lead-in question about religion, just in case it wasn’t easy to find a foot in to a faith discussion. And if God allowed these little intentions to line up such that my friend could come to hear of Jesus Christ, that would have been divine opportunity taken. Divine opportunity means nothing without divine intention.

Through this, I learnt that if the Gospel is something I’ve become convicted by in my own experience of God, there is always a “divine opportunity” waiting in my conversations. You can’t contain something that truly excites you or has moved you. You can take hold of a divine power that is always there and never forsakes you – in whatever conversation you find yourself in.

It is a reminder to me that at the end of it, it is not about clear “now is the time” signs or talking only about faith-related topics – it’s about the posture of my heart.

“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45 ESV)

This begs the question: What, then, is in my heart?

Am I so in love with God that I feel His love for people? Am I so transformed in character and likeness to Him? Am I so filled by my encounters with Jesus that I cannot help but speak about Him to the people I meet?

“As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20)

Of course, sometimes we find ourselves in conversations that are primed for faith discussions and the Gospel. But with a heart that is purposefully and constantly aligned to God’s, ever ready to share of the Good News that we have been transformed by – every opportunity can be divine.

This was originally posted on Peiyi’s blog and was republished with permission.