An excerpt from Jack Deer in his book, Surprised by the Voice of God :
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Availability
If you study the life of Jesus, who heard the voice of the Father better than anyone else, one of the first things that will impress you is his “unreserved availability for God.” I had been a Christian for only about a year when I first noticed this characteristic of Jesus’ life. I was reading the first chapter of Mark, where Jesus stayed up late into the night healing the sick and the demon possessed (vv. 32-34). After staying up half the night ministering to people, Mark tells us that “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (v. 35). If anyone ever had an excuse for sleeping in, Jesus certainly had one that morning. But instead he followed his daily habit of seeking solitude with God (see also Luke 4:42; 5:16).
Early in my Christian life I used to use this passage to say that Jesus always found time for God. I don’t see it that way at all now. When I look for the life of Jesus, I never really see him “finding time for God.” Rather, I see a Son whose time belongs completely to the Father. Jesus was never in a hurry. He never needed more time. This is because he looked on his time as his Father’s time. Also, he was completely available for his Father’s desires. He only did what he saw his Father doing (John 5:19). And he was always in the right place at the right time in order to fulfill the desires of his heavenly father.
I am continually amazed at the spontaneity and informality of the ministry of the Lord. Whether he was speaking to an unexpected crowd of over five thousand, as in the Sermon on the Mount, or to just one lost woman at the well in Samaria, he was always prepared and did just the right thing. He was never frantic, like the modern pastor who continually frets about how busy he is and then has to stay up late Saturday night putting together a “message” for Sunday morning. It is comical to imagine Jesus staying up the night before the Sermon on the Mount wondering what he was going to say to all those people. Yes, it is comical to imagine Jesus ever struggling for a sermon. His life is the sermon, and he ministered out of the daily overflow of his communion with his heavenly Father. He was able to do this because he was completely available to God.
Please don’t think I am speaking about having a regular “quiet time.” I am speaking about much more than this. I have known people who never missed their 5:30 A.M. quiet time of Bible study, and yet were meaner than junkyard dogs. It is possible to have a quiet time every morning and never be available to God. Unlike people who “find time” for God, who get their quiet time out of the way in the morning so they can go on with their real lives and forget God the rest of the day, people who are truly available to God see God as owning their day. He is free to reorder it at any time he chooses. They are not content simply to have a quiet time and get their “God stuff” out of the way early in the morning. Their satisfaction comes from experiencing his presence throughout the day and knowing they are pleasing to him.
Years ago I was in the process of developing a close friendship with a person who eventually became one of my closest friends. I was going through a difficult time and needed his help. As I was saying good-bye after lunch one day, I asked him how late I could call him that night. He said I could call him as late as I wanted to. I told him I didn’t want to wake him up, so I needed to know what time he planned to go to sleep. Then he said to me, “It doesn’t make any difference what time I go to sleep tonight. For you, I am a twenty-four-hour friend, seven days a week. Call me whenever you want. I’ll be there.” You see, availability is one of the primary characteristics of friendship. Friends are available to their friends.
Differing levels of friendship call for varying degrees of availability. There are a number of people to whom we will not give our phone number, but we will smile and speak to them if we meet them in a public setting. There are others who have only our office phone number. Then there are people who have our private home number. Of the people who have our private home number, only a few of them would feel free to use it any time of the day or night. These are our closest friends, the ones who can come in our back door without an appointment and be genuinely welcomed by us. Our closest friends are the ones who can interrupt our plans without causing any irritation. The deeper the friendship, the greater the availability.
This is what God really wants with us: a friendship (John 15:15). Many of us try to satisfy God by meeting religious duties and obligations, but in our closest friendships, we go far beyond the sense of duty. We are available to our closest friends because we love them and want to be with them. In true friendship, availability is not a burden or an obligation. Instead, it is a joy and a privilege.
In a real friendship, availability is reciprocal. The people who have unrestricted access to me also give me unrestricted access to them. It works the same way with our heavenly Father. He is most available to those who are most available to him. To many Christians this idea won’t sound fair. It may even sound like a “works” version of Christianity. They like to picture God as being equally available to all Christians at all times. It is almost as if the conceive of God as a cosmic bellboy who exists to meet their needs and can be dismissed when they have no conscious need of him. But this is both a misunderstanding of grace and of the nature of personal relationships. God doesn’t throw pearls before swine. The ones who find him are those who seek him with all their heart (Deut. 4:29).
If we want a deep friendship with God, it is important to cultivate a state of mind where we view all of our time as God’s time, a state of mind where we are totally available to him. … Availability to God is the first priority in ministry and the first requirement for hearing his voice.
There are both passive and active aspects to availability. There are times when we are simply to wait in the Lord (Jer. 42:1-7; Isa. 40:31 NASB). On the other hand, people who are available to God actively seek him (Matt. 6:33). How long should one seek the Lord? Thirty minutes every morning, an hour after lunch, two hours in the evening? Remember what I said earlier. We are to seek him until he comes (Hos. 1:12). … If we make ourselves available to God, he will make himself available to us (James 4:8).
(pp. 309-314)
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