Why, yes, that is a strange title, but hang with me and I think it will begin to make sense. Probably, painful sense.
Jesus told a parable in Luke 14 about a man who decided to hold a great banquet and sent out invitations to all those he wanted to attend. In order to help connect the dots of that strange title and this parable, let’s agree that attending a banquet with amazing food that someone else paid for could easily be considered a blessing. (Can I get an amen from all the foodies reading this??)
Let’s pick the story up and see how the blessing played out.
At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, “Come, for everything is now ready.“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, “I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.” Another said, “I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.” Still another said, “I just got married, so I can’t come.” (Luke 14:16-20 NIV, emphasis mine)
They all began to make excuses, and on the surface, they seemed like legitimate ones. There was a new piece of property, a new mode of transportation, and a new relationship. None of those are bad, and yet all of those can lead us to the one thing that can stop the blessings of God.
Busyness.
Corrie ten Boom once said, “If the devil can’t make us bad, he will make us busy.” And that state of constantly having a great deal to do is so often the very thing that keeps us from saying yes to the things that God is inviting us to enjoy.
The sad irony of this parable is that the excuses didn’t even make sense. No one buys a piece of property without seeing it first. No one buys a car without test-driving it first. And married people still eat! That’s the insidious danger of busyness: often it doesn’t steal our time as much as it steals our hearts.
Often busyness doesn’t steal our time as much as it steals our hearts. Share on XThey all could have made the banquet if they had wanted to, and I think that’s why the man throwing the party got mad when he heard the excuses. He knew what we all know: we make ourselves available to whatever has our affections. A house, a car, a job, a relationship, a King.
The point isn’t that we can only have Jesus or those other things, but that our hearts must be available to Him first, or else other things can begin to crowd out our availability for Him.
We make ourselves available to whatever has our affections. Share on XI love the song, “Available,” by Elevation Worship. I love it for its simplicity and its clear challenge for us to say yes to the Father before and above our yes to anything else. Yes always leads us to the blessing of God, so let me close this writing with the simple chorus from that song that calls all of us to drop the excuses — even the good ones — and simply say, “I am available.”
I hear You call
I am available
I say yes Lord
I am available
