Just this once!

 Life sometimes gives us one golden opportunity to “hit the nail on the head” on something. When you miss it, you miss out. Yes, I know there are some opportunities we fail to maximise that come back to us in other forms but sometimes, for some particular ones, you just have to go for it once and get it right. For such, chances are they are not replicated ever again. I cannot but ponder on one of such examples in an interesting story in the bible and I’ll like to share it with you.

 Judges 4: 19 -Then he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” So she opened a jug of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him. 20And he said to her, “Stand at the door of the tent, and if any man comes and inquires of you, and says, ‘Is there any man here?’ you shall say, ‘No.’ ”21Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went down into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.

This is one of the most daring acts I have read about. A woman, probably very young, took a bold step in killing a man who was trained for war, experienced in fighting battles and who was a master in killing people….She nailed a tent peg into the temple of a prodigious General Sisera! The temple is the flat area on each side of your head in front of the top of your ear. No doubt he was extremely tired but he could have woken up at the slightest sound, being a General who had been trained to be at alert at all times; whether awake or asleep.  I am certain that if she had not gotten it right at the first attempt, that attempt would have marked the end of her life. I wonder how she got so near to the man and got her acts together, driving the nail in just once. Yes the bible tells us the man was exhausted but her success must have been attributable to her determination, focus and courage. She must have seen it as her one and only chance and she went for it. Bravo! Her courageous act delivered her nation from the hands of the wicked oppressor.

David in the bible killed Goliath at the first attempt, with one single stone.  1^st Samuel 17: 49 says “Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth”. Just one throw and the huge and overwhelming Goliath came falling down. Just one attempt at that opportunity and he became a life time hero. If David had missed the first throw, he probably would have become jittery, Goliath would have been trudging nearer as he brought out the other stones one after the other, and chances are he would have missed the other throws. Sometimes, we need to courageously take on an opportunity, tackle a challenge which would bring us out of obscurity forever. Some opportunities are very rare and you can’t afford to miss them.  Some come so suddenly that if we are not discerning enough, we may not identify them. Some come to us not even looking like anything worth considering, but in them may be the key to a lifetime “wow “story.

Someone said “to every man there comes in his life time that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his "finest hour"