In the months of January and February I have spent many of my days at church dealing with heater issues. Our church buildings are well over 50 years old, and fixing the heaters has been long overdue. Whenever work is being done, it is not uncommon for there to be problems or issues that arise. Because of these issues, my attention has been taken away from what I want to accomplish and directed to the issues at hand with the heaters. This can be frustrating because I have not scheduled time for these interruptions.
Of course, these are not the only interruptions that I experience. Phone calls and people who come to the office are also a cause of interruption in my schedule. When someone goes into the hospital and I need to visit him or her, this also can be seen as an interruption from what I have scheduled. How can I change my outlook in regards to these “interruptions”?
It is important for me to live my life scheduling “open” times. What I mean by this is that I tend to plan my time without room for interruptions. Every half an hour I have something new scheduled to do. This not only keeps me from being able to handle interruptions, but also leads me to think of interruptions as a negative thing.
Even more important, I need to understand that most of Jesus’ ministry involved interruptions. In one story, Jesus is teaching at a house, when a paralytic is dropped down from the roof right in front of him. Instead of being upset at this, Jesus took the time to talk to the man, find out that he wanted to walk, and then He healed him. In another story Jesus is walking along when a woman touches the hem of His robe. Jesus feels ‘power’ go out from Him. He stops and discovers it was because the woman wanted to be healed. She believed she would be healed if she could just touch Jesus. Jesus took the time to talk with her and make her well.
I believe we are too caught up in life with what we are supposed to do, forgetting that there are things God wants us to do that aren’t even in our plans! Let us live our lives with the idea that interruptions are a part of life, and then we will be able to enjoy life so much more. Amen.
