I have occasionally suspected that one of the principal differences between God and me is that God does not appear to consult my calendar.
This is inconvenient.
I have a calendar. It has colours. It has appointments. It has reminders that remind me about other reminders. There are days when I look at it with the quiet satisfaction of a person who has successfully brought the universe under administrative control.
And then the telephone rings.
Or someone appears at the door.
Or the car makes a noise that automobiles are not supposed to make.
Or a conversation that was expected to last three minutes develops ambitions.
And suddenly the carefully arranged day becomes something else entirely.
We usually call these things interruptions.
I wonder whether God sometimes calls them appointments.
Jesus Was Constantly Being Interrupted
One of the striking things about the Gospels is how often Jesus seems to be on his way somewhere when something unexpected happens.
He is travelling when someone cries out.
He is teaching when somebody asks a question.
He is going to help one person when another person reaches through the crowd and touches his cloak.
Children arrive when the disciples clearly believe Jesus has more important things to do.
People climb trees, tear holes in roofs, shout from roadsides, appear beside wells, and generally demonstrate a complete lack of respect for orderly scheduling.
If the disciples had possessed smartphones, I suspect at least one of them would have been standing nearby saying, “Lord, we really need to keep moving. You have another healing at three-thirty.”
But Jesus stops.
Again and again, Jesus stops.
That may be one of the quietest revelations of God in the whole Gospel.
God is interruptible.
The Person in Front of You
We live in a culture that has become remarkably skilled at treating the present moment as an obstacle on the way to the next one.
We hurry through breakfast because there is work.
We hurry through work because there is supper.
We hurry through supper because there are emails.
We hurry through the emails because eventually, theoretically, there will be some glorious moment when everything is finished and we can finally begin living.
This moment has never actually been observed in nature.
There is always another email.
Perhaps Christian attentiveness begins when we stop believing that our real life is waiting somewhere further down the calendar.
Your life is happening now.
And sometimes the most important part of today will be the thing you did not plan.
The neighbour who wants to talk.
The child who asks the question at precisely the wrong moment.
The friend who calls.
The stranger who needs directions.
The person standing in the grocery aisle studying two nearly identical cans of tomatoes as though the salvation of Western civilization depends upon choosing correctly.
There they are.
And there you are.
And perhaps God is there too.
Interruptions Are Not Always Convenient
This does not mean every interruption must be welcomed.
Some interruptions are genuinely unnecessary. Some boundaries are healthy. Some telemarketers are extraordinarily persistent.
Jesus himself withdrew from crowds. He prayed alone. He rested. He did not respond to every demand made upon him.
Christian availability is not the same thing as allowing everybody else to control your life.
But there is a difference between having boundaries and becoming unavailable.
Sometimes we become so determined to protect our schedules that we accidentally protect ourselves from grace.
We begin believing that efficiency is a spiritual virtue.
Efficiency is useful.
It is simply not one of the fruits of the Spirit.
Love is.
Kindness is.
Patience is.
And unfortunately, all three are terribly inefficient.
Grace Rarely Arrives on Schedule
Most of the significant moments of our lives were probably not entered into our calendars months beforehand.
Friendships begin unexpectedly.
Conversations change us.
Someone says something we remember for twenty years.
A child asks a question.
A stranger offers kindness.
Someone needs us.
Someone notices us.
Someone forgives us.
Someone sits beside us.
Grace has always had a rather casual relationship with scheduling.
Perhaps that is because grace is less interested in our plans than in our presence.
The spiritual question is not simply, “What must I accomplish today?”
It may also be:
Who has God placed in front of me today?
The Ordinary Holiness of Stopping
These weeks between Thanksgiving and All Saints are not especially dramatic.
The turkey has disappeared.
The Christmas decorations have not yet achieved complete territorial dominance, although several stores appear to be making an aggressive advance.
The leaves are falling.
The evenings are shortening.
Life settles back into its ordinary rhythm.
And perhaps that makes these days particularly good for learning the holiness of interruption.
Because holiness is often discovered not in extraordinary experiences but in ordinary attention.
A cup of coffee shared longer than expected.
Five minutes spent listening.
A conversation in the parking lot.
A telephone call answered when we were tempted to let it go to voicemail.
A moment when we stop what we are doing and genuinely see the person standing before us.
These things will never appear on a résumé.
They will not improve productivity statistics.
There is no spreadsheet column marked Unexpected Moments of Grace.
There probably should be.
God Is Already in the Day
We often begin our mornings by asking God to bless our plans.
Perhaps occasionally we might reverse the prayer.
Instead of saying,
“God, bless what I have planned today,”
we might pray,
“God, help me notice what you are already doing today.”
That prayer is considerably more dangerous.
Because the answer may arrive disguised as an interruption.
Someone may need your attention.
Someone may need your patience.
Someone may need your laughter.
Someone may simply need you to stop long enough to remind them that they matter.
And you may discover something surprising.
The interruption was not keeping you from your life.
The interruption was your life.
The disciples eventually learned this while following Jesus along dusty roads.
The Kingdom of God was rarely waiting conveniently at the destination.
It kept appearing along the way.
In crowds.
At tables.
Beside wells.
On roadsides.
In conversations nobody had scheduled.
Perhaps it still does.
So make your plans.
Keep your calendar.
Set your reminders.
Arrive on time.
These are good things.
But leave a little room around the edges of your day.
Grace has a habit of arriving without an appointment.
And when it does, perhaps the holiest thing we can sometimes say is simply:
“I have a minute.”
Follow along on Instagram @renewablespiritual for more daily reflections on faith, life, and the surprising places where God still loves to meet us.
Companion Prayer
Gracious God,
You meet us not only in the moments we plan,
but in the moments that interrupt our plans.
Give us wisdom to know when to keep moving
and grace to know when to stop.
Open our eyes to the people you place before us.
Make us patient enough to listen,
present enough to notice,
and generous enough to give someone the gift of our time.
When grace arrives without an appointment,
help us recognize you standing in the interruption.
And teach us to discover that sometimes
the unexpected moment is not keeping us from life—
it is where life is waiting for us.
Amen.