THE LOST CAMPER: MAKING YOURSELF AVAILABLE
One of my favorite sayings: "God doesn't want your capability. He only wants your availability. If you'll give Him your availability, He'll provide the capability." Availability is when you make yourself accessible for utilization. Availability is what we see in Isaiah 6:8 -- "I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 'Whom shall I send and who will for us?' Then I said, 'Here am I; send me.'"
Father's Day is normally a day of joy. For Toby Hawkins, Father's Day 2005 was a day of despair. His son Brennan had been missing for two days. Brennan had gone to a Boy Scout camp in the mountains of Utah. Somewhere between the camp's artificial climbing wall and the chow hall, Brennan got separated from his group.
Three thousand volunteers had been searching for Brennan but could find no trace of the boy. By the fourth day, things looked hopeless. An 11-year-old without food or shelter could not last much longer.
A man named Forrest Nunley heard about Brennan's predicament on the news. The 43-year-old house painter from Salt Lake City took time off from work and drove nearly two hours to the search area. But instead of looking in the area near the camp, where the search had been focused over the last four days, Forrest took his ATV about five miles away from the camp. By midday, he found Brennan.
Nunley said, "'I turned a corner, and there was a kid standing in the middle of the trail. He was all muddy and wet from walking over wet ground."
After picking up the young man, Nunley pulled out his cell phone - relieved to get a signal - and called 911 to report his find. Brennan Hawkins was saved because Forrest Nunley made himself available for the search.
(From a sermon by Michael Luke, The Invitation Factor, 5/5/2011)