When Interruptions are the Most Important Work of the Day

This week was crazy. Crazy because scary things happened. Right away on Monday morning, as if it was a planned meeting time. I got a phone call from an old friend who worked in the ER in my hometown. She said my brother was in the ER having a heart attack. What?? Can you repeat that please. What?

Life Can be Crazy

When I hung up the phone and the shock wore off, the emotions set in. Tears. Fear. Panic. Love for my brother. Worry. And needless to say my week was re-arranged pretty quickly. Being with my brother during this time became the priority and everything else seemed less important.

It was very scary but my brother is doing well now all things considered. I just feel very thankful that his life was spared! We had some other situations that added to the craziness of this week but I won’t get into those details. It’s just to say that big or small many times life gives us situations that we are not expecting.

Interruptions Can Help Us Grow

Maybe you can relate to having interruptions. Perhaps it’s not a heart attack but you have constant interruptions. You can never quite get on top of all the things you need to get done in a day because you are being interrupted throughout the day with meals that need to be made, children that need to be dressed (at least somewhat), dishes, laundry, and a million other tasks that are seeking your attention.

Well if that’s you I want to encourage you with the things the Lord has been encouraging me with this week.

I thought a lot this week about what is truly important and how I can so often overemphasize things that really are of little eternal importance. The reality is life is about more than making progress, maintaining a home, or even accomplishing everything you set out to do in a day.

I thought about the quote below and how instead of avoiding interruptions at all costs to our work, we can learn to see them as part of God’s plan for our day.

These times of feeling interrupted, delayed perhaps inadequate or behind can actually be good for our soul? Lessons that our soul needs to be reminded of what is true, good and eternal.

Something Greater than My To-Do List

Now don’t get me wrong it feels good to cross things off of my list each day. To finish a project, lose a few pounds, make progress on the unending laundry pile or on a home improvement project. And in many ways progress is important.

But sometimes while scrolling through our feeds it can feel like progress is everything. Like if I can just make a little progress in this area my world will be complete. But this week I was reminded that whether big or small there is something much more important that completing my to-do list.

Elisabeth Elliott says,

“If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used we stunt the growth of the soul. What God gives us is not necessarily “ours” but only ours to offer back to him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves. Many deaths must go into reaching our maturity in Christ, many letting goes.”

Passion & Purity 1984

Our time is one of those gifts. If we hold it too tightly and don’t allow God to change our plans and our to-do list. We could actually prevent ourselves from becoming more like Him. That is challenging to me, especially in the more ordinary moments of life. When the interruptions don’t seem life threatening but more inconveniences to me.

Laying Down Our To-Do List

Unexpected interruptions, delays or the needs of others are actually an opportunity to see growth in our lives. A laying down of our own plans, ambitions, and dreams in order to serve another.

These verses help us to see that in laying down our own lives for Christ we actually find ours. In Matthew 16:25-26 in the Bible it says,

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

What a beautiful thing. What a hard thing. What a thing that only Christ can do.

Surrendering Our To-Do List to Christ

In the hospital I read the verses above and they spoke to me. Reminding me of what following Christ means. Of course that doesn’t always mean I fully abandon my to-do list like I did this week. But rather live our lives surrendered to Christ.

This week was crazy in many unexpected ways. But in big ways and small I was learning a more important lesson. How to put the needs of others above my own. How to trust God for my ambitions and desires when he is asking me to focus my attention elsewhere.

So be encouraged dear friend, the interruptions big or small that tend to seem random, may be some of the most important work we do in a day. Because those moments are the ones that are shaping us in the image of Christ. Faithfully doing the work we are called to, but joyfully laying it aside when God has something else for us on His to-do list.

God Bless you and KEEP you this weekend,

If you like this post you might also like this one on desiring Christ alone.