We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests. We can, then, pass them by, preoccupied with our important daily tasks, just as the priest-perhaps reading the Bible-passed by the man who had fallen among robbers. When we do that, we pass by the visible sign of the Cross raised in our lives to show us that God’s way, and not our own, is what counts. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
None of us likes being interrupted. When we are on a mission or a task, trying to move forward, it is incredibly annoying to have things that block or stop our forward motion. When I am trying to make a quick stop at the grocery store, sometimes you are met by long lines, aisles filled with restocking, or other people who are not in a time crunch. When trying to get in and out of the neighborhood, it seems like there can be a bus, a tree truck, or even construction that causes me to stop and wait. As a culture, we don’t like lines, we don’t like to wait, and we don’t want to be stopped by something blocking our path. In a world that is increasingly tech savvy, we create systems that make our waiting minimal, so that when we do have to wait or pause what we are doing. Being interrupted is incredibly annoying when we have our own agenda.
Thankfully, our God is not about our agenda. We create our own plans and directions at times without asking God where we are called or what God wants us to do. But the beauty of God is that God will stop and interrupt us when we need it most. God creates pauses and forks in the road that bend us and guide us to where we need to be the most. God’s agenda is not always convenient, but it is the only path that is right and true. In our lives, when interruptions inevitably happen in our day, rather than getting exasperated and frustrated, let us take these pauses to remind us to allow God to enter our lives.
Prayer
Amazing God, thank you for entering our lives and interrupting our agendas and plans. We often make plans and create directions for ourselves that are what we want, rather than what you want for this world. Help us to seek you, hear you, and act with the love and grace that you call us towards. Amen.
100%