As some of you know I went to North Carolina last week to meet one of my teammates, Briana, and test out some of our gear. You should all go over and checkout HER BLOG because I don’t have enough words in my vocabulary to tell you about how great she is. We chased waterfalls and watched sunrises and sunsets and camped out and loved life for a week.
As most of you also know I’m not much of a planner but when I do make a plan I don’t like for it to be changed or delayed. So on Saturday morning as I was trying to leave I had a plan of what time I wanted to be on the road and I was already an hour behind schedule. Frustration is an understatement but I got there and it was wonderful. Thanks dad for checking the oil!
Apparently the Lord wants to work on that part of my life because one day while in North Caroline Briana and I were on the Blue Ridge Parkway with all of our things ready to hit up some hiking. Then… a flat tire. I won’t go into detail but to say the least I was not happy. I was frustrated that now more plans were being changed and interruptions were happening. I learned that Briana is quite flexible and could really careless that our plans were messed up. I learned a lot that day from the Lord and now as I am looking back on the trip the Lord is teaching me even more. We pulled over and started to change the tire (yes, we know how to do that but yes, it may have taken us awhile) and this sweet man and his family pulled over to help us. Apparently, we looked like we had no idea what we were doing and that was fine (now that the situation is over and the trip was great I can say that). So this man, Billy, gave us a lesson on changing tires and he got his hands dirty and was willing to have his plans interrupted to help us out. We had determined sometime throughout this process that Billy and his family probably didn’t know the Lord so as I am sulking about this flat tire Bri is involved and getting to know Billy and his son and making conversation and at the end when he is about to leave we were able to weave the Lord into conversation and simply bless him.
So, last night as I am thinking and praying through the trip this past week and looking forward to trekking the globe with my team even more the Lord reminded me of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10). We’ve all heard it. We all want to be good Samaritans. We all desire to help people and do for them as the Lord has done for us but just because we desire that does not mean that we do it. Refer to that time I sulked about a flat tire and almost missed an opportunity to tell someone about Jesus because I don’t like my plans being interrupted. The Lord simply reminded me last night to be willing to be interrupted. He reminded me, as cliché as it is, that this Christian life is not about the destination. It’s all about the journey and the people you meet on the way. It’s all about telling one more person about Him and showing one more person His love for them. We could be like the PRIEST and step to the other side of the road. Or we could be like the Levite and step to the other side of the road. Or we could be like the Samaritan who it says “was on a journey” and consciously choose to have compassion on the person the Lord puts into our path and stop and love and help and tell them about Jesus. The choice is ours. How we handle interruptions is up to us. We can either see them as a burden and a speed bump in our journey to where we are going (that is not as important as we think it is anyway) or we can see it as an opportunity to show Christ’s love.
I love what it says about the Samaritan, he didn’t just tell him about Jesus and he didn’t just pray that someone else would come into the Jew’s life and help him and save him but the Samaritan became INVOLVED and it says that he “came to him and he bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them;”. This Samaritan didn’t pray for someone else to bring a miracle to this man or to bring Jesus to this man. This Samaritan was the miracle. He was the hands and feet of Jesus to this man. He was willing (keyword) to be interrupted and it goes on to say that the Samaritan took the Jew to an inn and at the end it says he will pay for whatever the Jew needed when he returned meaning he kept coming back to the Jew. He kept coming back and he spent his own money and he gave his own time to pour out the love of God on this man. God wasn’t looking for a doctor to help the Jew. He wasn’t looking for someone able to bandage his wounds and care for him. God was looking for a willing soul that understood that this interruption was only interrupting the plans he had made, it wasn’t interrupting God’s plans because it was God’s plan all along. It says in Proverbs 16:9 that “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” On that day that we got a flat tire we had a plan to go hiking but the unexpected (to us) happened and we got to meet Billy and we got to weave the Lord into the conversation. We were able to bless him because he had blessed us. Because Billy was okay with his plans being interrupted we were able to be okay with our plans being interrupted.
All that to say, be willing to be interrupted. Don’t let your messed up plans cause you to miss an opportunity to minister because it was the Lord’s plan the whole time. Don’t be the Priest and the Levite who literally crossed the street to avoid the very person God was placing in their lives.
I just want to say thank you so much to everyone that has been giving to my trip. I am so blown away by all the generosity. My gear worked great while hiking and I can’t wait for it to see 11 more countries! I have blown past the halfway point and now only have $7850 to go until I am fully funded!! If you would like to support me you can do that up top!
I still have some t-shirts for sale and a yard sale coming up! I know that some of you that have ordered shirts haven’t gotten them and I promise that they will be getting to you this week since I am back in town, I haven’t forgotten you! If you have anything to donate to the yard sale just let me know and I can work on getting that stuff from you!! Don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE and SHARE my blog to have all the updates for what the Lord is doing!!
Don’t forget to go take a gander at Briana’s blog and gain some Jesus wisdom!
