Be Available

By Cindy Martin –

I find myself wrestling with a new twist on an old issue. I posed a couple of questions to God a while back, “What do You really want me to be doing with my life? How should I actually be spending my time here on earth?”

After seeking His heart on a day I’d set aside to ponder these questions with Him, His answer was clear … well, sort of. His inaudible, but unmistakable response to my query was, “Be available.”

What does “be available” actually look like? That day, I was at a crossroads, asking God which of the many possibilities before me He wanted me to pursue and He asked me to BE available. Notice that He didn’t ask me to “do available”, but rather to “be available.”

Herein lies the struggle – the age-old struggle – how do we do that? How do we live in the tension between being and doing? After all, the incessant doer in me knows that things still need to get done. Yet my heart knows there is more to it.

Ecclesiastes 3:9-11 articulates some of my frustration but also brings some clarity to the issue.  It reads: “What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (NLT).

Work was God’s idea and His gift to us. ‘Doing’ and ‘being’ both originated with Him. The fact that God “planted eternity in the human heart” means that our spirits know that we were created for something more than mere physical labor and existence. But because we can never understand all that God is up to in our lives, we spend a lot time ‘doing’ in an effort to figure out ‘being’.

I’m learning that ‘being’ is not the cessation of activity so you can engage in monk-style meditation but rather making space in my mind and in my schedule for Him to have full access to my undivided attention.

Sometimes, this takes an intentional choice on our part to shorten the ‘to-do’ list and lengthen the ‘stop doing list’. Other times, it’s quieting our minds so that we can hear the answers He’s already providing.

Prayer: “Lord, show me how to make time in my mind and schedule so I can unpack and truly experience the life that You have designed just for me.”

Quote: The more time I spend “being” with God, the more He informs my “doing”.