interruptions.

God uses pain more than anything else to teach and shape us.  One definition of “irritation” might be “a lesser pain.”  In my case, interruptions have become an extreme irritation for me.  The succession of small hurts that continue to keep me from my “real” work are beginning to profoundly affect the way I see myself and those around me.  This sort of severe schooling is what the Lord is best at.

 . . . .

My mentor, Bill Lane, used to say, “Interruptions are my business.”  Only now does that lesson begin to really make sense.

The Lord is less interested in our gifts than He is in His own transformational work in our lives.  If we have eyes to see it, He has a purpose and intention behind every interruption, no matter how irritating.  In fact the most irritating interruptions contain the promise of the most important lessons.

Family, friends, illness, hurts, needs, all these and more can become the source of irritating interruptions.  Through them, God is nudging, whispering, His severe lesson—that loving and listening and trusting mean more than papers and books and deadlines.  That even as He gives us first and foremost His presence, so we are called to be fully present for others in their suffering.

– Michael Card