Are you Available?

The first thing that pops into my head when I think about the word “available” is the restroom stalls that have a green slot that show its availability and the red slot that shows that it is in use. I am from Texas so we have a gasoline station chain called Buc-ee’s. I am telling you that this gas station is the elite road tripping pit stop. The restrooms are the cleanest and sometimes they have green or red lights above the stall to show its availability.

The dictionary definition for the word available is: “able to be used or obtained; at someone’s disposal.” When someone is available to hang out, it means their schedule is completely free and that they have no other distractions or previous engagements holding them back from spending time with you.

In the book of Luke, chapter 10, we find a very popular story that most people are familiar with. We come across two sisters named Mary and Martha who have welcomed Jesus into their home. Jesus is in their home and Martha is occupied doing all the house chores, meanwhile Mary is at Jesus’ feet listening to him. Obviously Martha gets irritated so she urges Jesus to tell Mary to help her. Jesus, however, does the opposite and commends Mary for her actions.

Mary and Martha both had good intentions. For starters, they had welcomed Jesus into their home. However, I feel like many of us Christians have already welcomed Jesus into our lives, homes, hearts, and we have even been saved. But as time passes we make ourselves unavailable to him. We have the “WELCOME” doormat at the door of our hearts so Jesus can see that he is welcome, but the question is, do we really make time for him? Do we make ourselves available to him? 

Martha was so occupied with all her worldly work that she passed on the opportunity to sit at the King of King’s feet and listen to him. When thinking about it, you could probably ask: Who would do such a thing? But the truth is that many of us do this day to day. We pass up an opportunity to read our Bible to instead spend time scrolling through socials. We pass up prayer time to instead see what’s new on Netflix.

Are you available? As previously stated, by definition the word means “able to be used.” Are you able to be used by God? Or are you going to keep focusing on other things? All my life, my parents have told me that if I didn’t use the voice that God gave me to bring glory to his name, he could easily pass it on to someone else who would glorify him. Since I was young I understood that I had to make myself available so God could continue to use me. 

I pray that this helps you and that you examine your life and remove every obstacle that is making your door sign say “OCCUPIED” to God. I pray that you internally analyze what has been holding you back from being completely available to God.