Speaker: Darlene Sala | Series: Encouraging Words | Have you noticed that Jesus never hurried?  In fact, on the contrary, when His friend Lazarus was dying, He delayed coming to see him until Lazarus was dead. Of course Jesus knew that He was going to bring him back to life in a few days. Jesus could accept delays in life because He had the decided advantage of seeing time from an eternal perspective. He knew the past, the present and future—all at the same time.

We can’t know that, can we. That’s why we get so frustrated when things don’t go as planned. We have our day all figured out so that we can accomplish certain things we feel are important. And then along comes an interruption.  We didn’t ask for it, but there it is. Nothing is left to do but to trust that somehow God will work His purposes in spite of the hole in our day.

James O. Fraser, who was a missionary in China back in the early 1900s, experienced this problem when he needed uninterrupted time for language study. He said,

I am finding out that it is a mistake to plan to get through a certain amount of work in a certain time. It ends in disappointment, besides not being the right way to go about it…. It makes one impatient of interruptions and delay. Just as you are nearly finishing—somebody comes along to sit with you and have a chat!  I think it is well to cultivate an attitude of mind which will enable one to welcome him from the heart and at any time.[1]

 

Why am I writing about interruptions today? Because I just had a four-hour one pop up in the middle of my day today that totally changed my plans. I was glad to find the verse in Proverbs that assures us, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21).  Hey, if God sends the interruption, then it’s a Divine appointment!

 

 

 

[1]Quoted by Elisabeth Elliot in her on-line devotional “Gateway to Joy,” for 11-03-2005, www.backtothebible.org.