Opportunities and Costs

"Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,

who rely on horses,

who trust in the multitude of their chariots

and in the great strength of their horsemen,

but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,

or seek help from the LORD"

- Isaiah 31:1

When I was a lot younger, my parents taught me about opportunity cost. Not sure why they taught me, but they did. Opportunity cost is defined as: the next best alternative forgone when an economic decision is made. For example, the opportunity cost of writing this blog post is my 4u homework.

The reason I bring this up is because I read the above verse today. I think it means that Egypt and its many horses and chariots represents worldly power, something the world admires and runs to in times of need. A lot of Isaiah talks about idols and I think I know what mine are. A lot of times, I run to my Egypt, success in the world instead of seeking help from God. Sometimes when I need to boost myself, I look to some glories of the past and think: Hey I'm pretty great. But I don't look to God and think: I'm nothing and He is everything.

Tomorrow, Alumni Mentoring Program is on. I was going to go, my Mum told me it'd be great to build connections with ex-NSGs for my future, I thought so too. It'd be great. I started imagining all the people I would meet and what a great impression I would make and how they would help me to go far in the future. It was set for a Wednesday morning but I supposed a one-off skip of ISCF would be fine. But today I suddenly felt like I really wanted to lead at ISCF. I really missed the kids and being able to show them how great God is. I brushed it off. During my quiet times, I prayed that I wouldn't rely on my Egypt. In the middle of this, I realised that was exactly what I was doing. I was relying on these connections (whatever they were) to help me to succeed in the future, to make me great. Forgetting that I will never be great.

CLICHE ENDING. But I emailed Jan and told her that I was skipping. A small trade off for Christ and His church methinks. I remembered times where people I knew had skipped things that would've enhanced their future to lead. And I suppose I thought I should do the same. What better way to apply what I'd read :D It brought me back to when I was talking to someone at church over lunch. He (he's a physio) was saying how some of the guys in his course spent their time working as receptionists at physios and building up beautiful CVs and he spent his serving God. He knew that this would set him back career-wise but he did it anyways. He told me: "It's only a small trade-off in the grand scheme of things" (trade-off is another way of saying opportunity cost). This stuck with me, especially today, because I guess I realised that one morning talking to successful people is only a small trade-off for what I'm doing instead :)

It might be a high opportunity cost but hey, it's a great opportunity ^_^