60 Seconds – Opportunity

Booker T. Washington was born into slavery to a slave mother and white father in southwestern Virginia in 1856. In spite of racial prejudice and segregation, he rose to great heights as an educator, author, orator and political leader.

To illustrate how to take advantage of our opportunities, he told the following story. “A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, ‘Water, water, we die of thirst!’ The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’ A second time the signal, ‘Water, water, send us water!’ ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’ And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’ The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those who depend on bettering your condition, ‘Cast down your bucket where you are’.”

We read in Galatians 6:10, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” This speaks of “an appropriate time to do something, to labor, to be active, to perform, with the idea of continued exertion being included.”

Carpe Diem is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace. It is popularly translated “seize the day.” Horace used the word to mean “make use of.”
Shakespeare said in his epic, Julius Caesar:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life,
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
The “tide” is the opportunities of life that can be seized or squandered.

“Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them” (William Arthur Ward).