Interruptions Are Our Work

I tend to be task oriented.  Always have been and probably always will.  I enjoy working hard to complete a task such as writing a sermon, preparing a Bible study, building a shed, cutting and stacking a couple cords of firewood, and well you get the idea.  I like setting and achieving goals in life.  What I don't like are interruptions.  And I will go to great lengths to prevent them from happening.  But, over the years I have come to see that my battle to avoid interruptions has been and still is a losing battle.

Its a losing battle for the simple reason that interrupting my work seems to be God's work and He is very good at it.  And the fact is, I think the reason why God has made it one of His pet projects to  consistently interrupt my ministry work is because He was trying to show me what real work is.  So, by interrupting my work with His work God has taught me that real ministry is about people not projects.  Its about putting people work before paperwork.  But, because I am a slow learner and tend to default to tasks and projects rather than people God interrupted me with....wouldn't you know it.....people.

Then one day it dawned on me--interruptions are God's work or more accurately, interruptions are God's way of refocusing me on His work so as to not let me waste my life on my work.  As Henri Nouwen, who wrote Out of Solitude put it,

"A few years ago I met an old professor at the University of Notre Dame.  Looking back on his long life of teaching, he said with a funny twinkle in his eyes: 'I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I slowly discovered that my interruptions were my work.'"  "This is the great conversion in life: to recognize and believe that the many unexpected events are not just disturbing interruptions of our projects, but the way in which God molds our hearts and prepares us for his return . . . ." 

So, with these thoughts in mind and since God continues to interrupt my work with His work or better yet, with His divine appointments for my good I have made it my new goal to do something really radical in my life and that is to make more room for people so as not to waste my life pursuing the tasks that don't matter all the while missing the people who do.