A botanist in Scotland used to go out on fine days among the heather. Taking out his microscope, he would lie among the purple blooms and examine them for hours at a time. A shepherd who tended his sheep close by watched him, wondering what was so interesting about the common heather.
Finally, he came to the botanist and asked what he found so interesting. Without a word, the botanist handed him the glass and the bloom. The shepherd gazed intently at the perfection and the beauty revealed by the microscope, and presently tears trickled down his brown cheeks.
"Why those tears?" asked the botanist.
"Oh," replied the shepherd, "they are so bonnie, and to think I have trampled so many of them under my feet!"
Like the shepherd, many people are now trampling beautiful opportunities under their feet. You may be one of them, but you still have an opportunity, a golden NOW. Do not despise it or neglect it, or you will look back with longing desire that can never be realized: "If only I had another opportunity, what good use I would make of it!"
Opportunities neglected and gone forever will only be a torment to remember. "To think I could have been saved—I would have been saved—if only I had not wasted all my opportunities."
Thank God that you still have time to decide for Christ, still time to turn to Him who "will in no wise cast out." This opportunity now is yours. Use it wisely, for it is the most precious possession you have.
Who knows if you will ever have another? Make Christ and His salvation your choice now, lest you awake in a lost eternity to find opportunities gone forever. You will have left only the tormenting memory, never to be erased, that you carelessly let them slip by.