“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life — the life God is sending one day by day.”            (C. S. Lewis)

Your office door at work is closed, so that you can focus on that project that is due next week.  You hear a knock at the door and a co-worker peaks in and says, “I really need your help with this.”  It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon and you’re ready to relax and get some fresh air on the deck in the back yard.  Suddenly your neighbor looks over the fence and says, “Hey do you have a minute?” Or worse, you experience a broken bone from an accident that sets you back weeks in accomplishing the many items on your ‘must do’ list. Yes, they come in all shapes and sizes at the most inopportune times.  They are called interruptions, and how we respond to them can make a huge difference in our life or the life of someone else.

Quite often, our reaction to an interruption serves as a point of frustration.  This can evoke a number of emotions including sadness, self-pity, anger, and worry.  Most interruptions entail some form of self-sacrifice, requiring us to focus on the need or question at hand.  If we can move beyond our own selfishness and concentrate on the person, we can learn to view the ‘inopportune’ as an ‘opportunity’.  If we practice in enough circumstances, we will become a more compassionate and charitable individual.  If the interruption is a personal one, we must wonder if God is trying to get our attention.  Maybe we are heading down the wrong path, and He is redirecting us to be in His will and not our own. Or maybe He just wants us to slow down so that we can reflect and renew.

Jesus was frequently interrupted as He went from place to place.  In G. H. Morling’s book, The Quest for Serenity – he states the following:  “A valuable study of the Gospels could be made, noticing how many times Jesus gave some of His greatest teachings in circumstances where he had simply been interrupted. How different this is from us; we hate to be interrupted. To Jesus, the importance seemed to lie in the person whose path had crossed His own. Things don’t just ‘happen’ in the providence of God. The interruption may well be our highest task at that very moment.”  Examples of Jesus’ interruptions include the healings of the paralytic (Mark 2:4-5) and the sick woman (Mark 5:25-34). In each case, Jesus paused to help even though He was focused on another task at hand.

The psalmist reminds us that the Lord can make “the plans of the peoples of no effect” (Psalm 33:10). Today, you may be going through something that, at the moment, appears to be a setback to what you had intended. But, could it be that God is intersecting in your life to bless you? Instead of getting frustrated, trust that there is a purpose and thank God for the blessing of interruptions. We may just find that we can handle the interruption when our faith becomes greater than our frustration.

REFLECTION:  Can you recall a time when God interrupted your life at an inopportune time?  How did you feel, and what was the outcome?  Looking back – can you now see that it was a blessing or opportunity to witness? Does that experience give you renewed vision for the next time unplanned circumstances enter your life?

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