Discipleship Practice:
Seeing Interruptions as God Sees Them
Objective: To become more alert to God’s divine appointments
How often? Daily for three weeks or until it becomes a habit
Instead of viewing interruptions as obstacles that keep us from our goals, begin to view these “interruptions” as God’s divine appointments.
- Every morning, thank God for the interruptions that will occur throughout your day. Thank Him for interrupting your schedule with His divine appointments.
- Prepare yourself every morning by asking God to help you respond correctly and not be offended by the following:
- inconvenient interruptions
- people with bad attitudes
- people who act inappropriately
- When interruptions happen, thank God, even when the interruptions seem to cause problems. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
- Keep a small notebook, and record the interruptions that occurred during your day.
- At the end of the day, think back on one or two interruptions that happened and ask God what His purposes were for them. Was there more that God wanted to accomplish in these encounters? Could you have responded in a way that better demonstrated God’s love?
Years after I had started practicing this discipleship exercise, I was astounded to read this account by Dale Carnegie of a Wall Street bank president who practiced something very similar to this on a weekly basis:
“The president of an important Wall Street bank once described, in a talk before one of my classes, a highly efficient system he used for self-improvement. This man had little formal schooling; yet he had become one of the most important financiers in America, and he confessed that he owed most of his success to the constant application of his homemade system. This is what he does. I’ll put it in his own words as accurately as I can remember.
“For years I have kept an engagement book showing all the appointments I had during the day. My family never made any plans for me on Saturday night, for the family knew that I devoted a part of each Saturday evening to the illuminating process of self-examination and review and appraisal. After dinner I went off by myself, opened my engagement book, and thought over all the interviews, discussions and meetings that had taken place during the week. I asked myself:
“What mistakes did I make that time?
“What did I do that was right—and in what way could I have improved my performance?
“What lessons can I learn from that experience?
“I often found that this weekly review made me very unhappy. I was frequently astonished at my own blunders. Of course, as the years passed, these blunders became less frequent. Sometimes I was inclined to pat myself on the back a little after one of these sessions. This system of self-analysis, self-education, continued year after year, did more for me than any other one thing I have ever attempted.
*“It helped me improve my ability to make decisions—and it aided me enormously in all my contacts with people. I cannot recommend it too highly.” *1
We must retrain ourselves to be alert to the realization that these God-ordained appointments may occur at any time, without warning and without any hint that signals their eternal significance.
Significant opportunities for ministry come and go in seconds. And they often come disguised as interruptions… with bad attitudes… acting inappropriately.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”—Romans 5:8 (NASB)
Walking with God
When we begin to thank God for every circumstance and interruption in our lives, and pray into them at the end of the day, something wonderful begins to happen. He begins to speak to us about future events in our lives, as well as giving meaning to things that we have already experienced, and we begin to walk with God.
“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”—John 16:13 (KJV)
It may be just a taste, not yet a moment-by-moment experience, but we definitely begin to walk with God through our lives, experiencing circumstances with Him, as He shares His point of view with us. This occurs because, finally, instead of complaining about the circumstances that God brings into our lives and rejecting them and fighting against them, we accept and embrace them. In doing that, we come into agreement with what God is doing in our lives.
Until we come into agreement with what God is doing in our lives, embrace it and accept it with thankfulness, we cannot fully walk with God.
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”—Amos 3:3 (KJV)
On the other hand, God will only put up with a limited amount of complaining before He has had enough.
“Nor discontentedly complain as some of them did—and were put out of the way entirely by the destroyer (death). Now these things befell them by way of a figure [as an example and warning to us].”—1 Corinthians 10:10–11 (AMP)
God took personal responsibility for the difficult circumstances that the children of Israel faced as they journeyed in the wilderness. When they complained about those circumstances, He took it personally. They were complaining about Him. He listened to their complaints for only a limited amount of time before he turned them over to the destroyer, who ended their lives. First Corinthians 10:11 makes it clear that this was not an isolated event. Their judgment is a warning to us. If we gripe and complain about the circumstances that God brings into our lives in the same way they did, we shouldn’t be surprised to experience consequences similar to what they experienced.
With Every Concept, Balance Is Needed
Having a willingness to welcome interruptions as divine appointments does not mean that we allow others to take advantage of us and steer us out of the path God has called us to walk. That was disastrous for the unnamed man of God in 1 Kings 13.
This man delivered a powerful prophecy to King Jeroboam. Then, as he was traveling back home, an old prophet met him and invited him to his house. He told the old prophet that God had warned him not to eat or drink and not to go home the same way he came. The old prophet lied and said an angel had told him to bring him to his house. After the man of God ate and drank with the old prophet, he was killed by a lion on his way home.
Jesus welcomed interruptions but balanced that approach with discretion and never surrendered his destiny to the will of another.
“But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.”—John 2:24–25 (NKJV)
The Gospels contain several examples of times when Jesus either said “no” to people who would have led Him out of the path He was called to walk, or when he sent people away in order to be able to pursue God as He was called to do.
“And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray.”—Mark 6:46 (NKJV)
“Now those who had eaten were about four thousand. And He sent them away.”—Mark 8:9 (NKJV)
“Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.”—John 6:15 (NKJV)
As another example, when Jesus began to reveal things to His disciples about his coming crucifixion, Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”—Matthew 16:21–23 (NKJV)
When He returned from His intense times of solitary prayer, He was always alert and ready to respond to people with powerful demonstrations of the love of God, even when they seemed to cause interruptions for Him.
Reference: 1 Carnegie, Dale (1936) How to Win Friends and Influence People
