“God is in the interruptions, but He’s seldom in my plans.” Gloria Gaither
I recently came across this Gloria Gaither quote. I have found that it is true; God’s will for me has been experienced much more in the unexpected than the expected events in my life. Past years and recent events have convinced me of this.
Recently, a friend died unexpectedly, leaving a wife and five children. Our plans for a fall break trip to visit our son in Colorado turned into helping this family in Georgia with home repairs. A week before we were to leave our church received a message through our social media page. A cross-country cyclist had stopped near our town and was looking for somewhere to overnight. Could our church help him find a place to stay? I called my wife and shared with her the details. “Bring him home”, was her response. I picked him up at a country road intersection. We fed him, washed his clothes, gave him a place to sleep, and sent him on his way the next day with God’s blessing. We left for Georgia five days later.
Several days into the Georgia adventure my wife checked her email. Three different people had forwarded us the same message concerning an exchange student from Spain that needed a host family. “We thought of you”, they all said. Two days after returning from Georgia a 16-year-old girl brought her suitcases into our guest room with plans to spend the rest of the school year with us.
All of these things happened in two weeks. All of them were interruptions in my life. All of them were part of God’s plan for me.
I feel secure when I know what is happening today and tomorrow. I like to have control. However, I am fooling myself if I think I am in control of my life. I may have a few plans, but most things I encounter daily I do not control. Only God knows what my future holds, whether it is a year, a week, a day, or an hour from now.
When God interrupts my life it reminds me that He is Lord, the Master, of my life. I am a servant of God and He gets to determine what experiences I have on any given day. It may be an unexpected interruption to me but it never is to Him. Also, Isaiah 55:8 clearly tells me that God’s ways are not my ways. My human logic doesn’t apply to Him. I need to trust that God knows what He is doing when something unexpected happens. Finally, God wants me to experience more than what I am comfortable experiencing. If I limit myself to my plans, those things in which I am comfortable, I miss out on the transforming work that God wants to do in me and through me. Not every interruption is an opportunity to walk in God’s will; some are distractions from it. But, we learn to tell the difference as we discover more of God’s character, and practice responding to His voice.
Do you want to know God is real? We must create space for Him to break into our everyday. We must see God’s interruptions as opportunities to experience God and impact His world, not as intrusions.
