Caleb - Available

Topic:               Available

Scripture:          Numbers 13: 1-3, 30

The Lord said to Moses, ‘Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites; from each of their ancestral tribes you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.’ So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them leading men among the Israelites. These were their names: From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur; ⁵from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori; from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; …

But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.’

Devotion

Onward through our acrostic odyssey, we get to “A”.  Here, I present options to you:

Able, Accepting, Action oriented, Alert, Alive, Amazing, Attentive, good Attitude, Available, Awake, Aware, and un-Afraid.  Twelve this time, and there are bound to be more. 

I chose “Available” to think about today. 

C –  Conflicting

A –  Available

L –

E –

B –

According to Biblegateway.com and using the NIV, I looked up the name “Caleb” to see what I could learn about him from his life before our lesson.  Guess where the first reference is?  Verse 3 in our text, after a lead in that says he was a leader.  Not much detail, and I’m sure today there would have been thousands of lost Israelites Googling him to find out every email and text message he ever sent to see if he was acceptable to lead them, but not then.  He was known as a leader, and he was available to serve his God and his community when he was called on.  This wasn’t a great assignment either – he was first separated from his family for 40 days and then, along with Joshua, stood against a large majority and eventually ended up walking around in the sand for years.  But he was available to serve and in the center of God’s will.

Are we available?  Or are things like work, hobbies, community service, church work, little league coaching, and exercising getting in the way of doing something God wants done?  Notice two things:  First, not everyone is called to lead, but we are all called to do what God wants us to.  Those can be things like DAILY quiet time and bible study, or serving your spouse.  Also notice, that none of the things I listed as getting in the way are necessarily bad things.  We need jobs, families, communities and churches, but we also need to listen and be available.  God has blessing in store that we miss if we don’t. 

What other “A” characteristics are showing up in your life when others see you?