Availability in Friendship-a Tiny Virtue

Do you ever feel like that guy from the Comcast commercial who is moving and he checks on the availability of friends to help him move? Everyone has an excuse for not being available…when it’s something they don’t really want to do. Had it been free tickets to the World Series, or front row seats to see Clapton in a small venue, or skybox seats at the 50 yard line, they’d have been available, front-and-center, yes?

We’re in a series on the Tiny Virtues for Exemplary Christian Living.  Today, we’re going to take a magnifying glass to the tiny virtue of friendship and go even smaller.

Let’s magnify those traits within friendship to discuss the first of those even tinier virtues: availability.

Cornelius and Peter demonstrate this idea of availability…to God, to God’s work, and to each other. They are exemplary in it.

Both Cornelius and Peter in Acts 10 are surprised by visions. It’s like that call out of the blue that interrupts what you’re doing. But they make themselves open and available. Cornelius responds by sending the men just as the angel asked. Peter receives the men just as God had prompted him to do.

Could either of them come up with excuses? Sure. But they didn’t.

How are you at being available for others?

I ask that a lot, reminding myself that there’s a difference between being available and being an enabler. Between availability and armchair quarterbacking.  Between availability and becoming a hindrance or downright annoying.  How do we keep from the negatives?  By being available first to God.  It will help you to know if availability has become a one way street for you or for people you know.  Availability with Cornelius and Peter went both ways. They each had to sacrifice things to be exemplary in the tiny virtue of availability. If you get a chance, read Acts 10 and think about the obstacles to availability which are amply present in the passage.  How did they set an example for us that mirrors this Scripture?

Galatians 6:10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Ponder today: Your availability to God and friends

Bible characters of the day: Peter and Cornelius