We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps. Proverbs 16:9

We call them interruptions, but they may be something very purposeful and powerful.

Peter and John were going about their daily business, heading to the temple for mid-afternoon prayers when they were confronted by a beggar. They didn’t carry any money (Luke 9:3) and could have simply passed him by. But Peter and John stopped and looked at the man (Acts 3:4). Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk,” and the man’s crippled feet and ankles were instantly healed! Off he went, walking, leaping and praising God with Peter and John, into the Temple for prayers (Acts 3:6-8).

What seemed like just an interruption of Peter and John’s day would set in motion an unbelievable chain of events:  the church would grow to 5,000, be persecuted, be forced to leave Jerusalem and, then, through the conversion of Paul, would go global. One interruption was the turning point for the Church.

The story of the healed beggar, told in the Bible book of Acts, is a potent reminder that, as we simply go about our lives, God does intervene to bring about His miraculous purposes in our lives.

“The great thing, if one can,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is…that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life that God is sending one day by day.[1]

[1] Lewis, C. S. (n.d.). A quote from the collected works of C.S. Lewis. Goodreads. Retrieved July 7, 2022, from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/44447-the-great-thing-if-one-can-is-to-stop-regarding