Click-bait.
I hate it, you hate it, we ALL hate it. But I feel justified to use it this time because it leads right into what this blog is all about. Being interruptible.
I’m sure you were just scrolling innocently through social media or checking e-mails, and then BAM! You saw the title of this blog, and it made you curious. Curious because the possibilities of what could be written are limitless. Well, the same is very much true for being interruptible.
The Race has shown me the invaluable gift of being interruptible. Back in the States “time is money” and it’s so easy to live that way. Rushing from one place to the other because being busy is a “good” thing. But being out here has shown me the value of letting God create divine moments when you least expect it or even more, when it’s inconvenient.
Jesus modeled this for us well.
Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
– Matthew 14:13-14 ESV
Just before Jesus feeds the five thousand, He was withdrawing to a desolate place. Jesus wanted space. Jesus wanted to be alone. His physical body was tired and empty. His Spirit needed refreshing.
Put yourself in Jesus’s sandles for a minute. You are trying to escape to a solitary place, so you get in a boat to sail across the sea (not just a small journey). The whole time your looking forward to being refilled and refreshed. You’re out in the open sea now, no one is around. But after a while you walk to the front of the boat, and as you look over the sea, there is a great crowd on the shore waiting for your help.
I think all of our first reactions would be “Crap…..” or “You’ve got to be kidding me!” or “Haven’t I given enough!?” But Jesus has a different mindset than this world. Even in His weariness, He saw them and “had compassion on them”
My friends, this is no easy task. It requires that we have God’s heart for people and not our own. My flesh is not interruptible, it knows what it wants and it wants it NOW. But when we live from the heart of God, even when we are weary He allows us to have compassion for the hurting and the broken. Without this compassion, it’s nearly impossible to be interruptible. But when we find this compassion for the everyday, it changes everything.
So many times on the Race, I have just been living life and doing the everyday, ordinary things, and then BAM! God shows up and interrupts all my plans. At times it was just someone on the street that was asking for my name, where I was from, or how I was doing, and we end up being invited into their home. Sometimes it was a moment where a group of us got to pray with someone and we saw healing. The other day it was a couple of guys that wanted to play ping pong with me when I entered a building just to use the bathroom. I got to talk to these local high schoolers, play table tennis with them (and lose haha), and speak truth into their lives.
This past week we have been able to see some incredible fruit from being interruptible. Over our time here in Ölgii, we have all felt like we needed to invest in a barista at a particular coffee shop. Over simple conversations week after week, we built a simple relationship with her. This led to her one day stopping by our guest house and having a conversation with us. Through that conversation, she ended up inviting us to the countryside to spend time with her family. In those four days we were able to experience incredible culture, eat home cooked local meals, but more importantly, able to show the love of God and plant seeds in this locals life.
All of these devine moments on the race have happened because we were interruptible. We had compassion on who God was placing before us. Yes sometimes we were tired or weary, sometimes we had places to be and things to do, and sometimes we just didn’t feel like being interruptible. But every time we have said “Yes”, God has used it.
Every time God asks us to be interruptible, it’s a mystery. We never know what is going to happen. Sometimes He works in ways we can see and sometimes in ways we cannot see. The possibilities of what God wants to do are limitless.
Want to see God move in your life every day? Seek God for a compassionate heart, and learn what it means to be interruptible. Your life will never be the same.
