Being Willing to be Interrupted

It’s been a long, tiring day. You’re almost to the end of it and you just want to chill – flip on the television to escape to another world. Aw! It feels so good to get off your feet when — just like that — the phone rings. The caller ID tells you that it’s that one friend who always seems to have a pressing issue. Do you answer the phone? Or do you let it go to voicemail?

There may be good reasons to disregard the call. It may be that you need to be able to clear your mind and you had reserved this time for quiet prayer and meditation. You just want to steal away with Jesus. After all, who should take priority over Him?

I think you know where I’m going with this. If we purpose to follow Jesus’ lead, we’ll say a quick prayer -- and take the call. Isn’t that what Jesus did? “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So He began teaching them many things.” (Mark 6:34) He was always allowing needy people to interrupt His plans.

Jesus’ plan had been for the disciples to rest after returning from their preaching mission. He wanted them to get away from the crowds and recharge. But when he saw the crowd awaiting them on the shore, “He had compassion on them” and He changed plans. His “time off” became an opportunity to teach the crowd. And everytime -- there were miracles that took place.

The fact is – we are little Jesuses if His light shines brightly in us. First we read that "He is the light of the world" (John 8:12), but He boomeranged that back at us when He said "You are the light of the world." (Matthew 5:14). Like Jesus, we should all get in the habit of choosing compassion. Like Jesus, we should be open to the possibility that some-thing or some-one will come along and disrupt our plans. Jesus' example for us is to stay flexible and open to the Holy Spirit, no matter what we have planned or scheduled for any day. It’s this openness of heart that allowed Jesus to feed the five thousand on His day off, and it’s the same openness that will make us more available to the people around us who need our attention and care.

We all make plans. Our lives are busy, and we often feel annoyed by interruptions. But Jesus wasn’t annoyed. “His heart was moved” with compassion. Our plans should always take second place to God's plans. It can be tempting to deflect interruptions or brush people aside because we want to guard our private time or finish our to-do list. But if we do that, we could end up missing an opportunity to make a difference—even a dramatic one—in someone’s life.

So go ahead, and make your plans! Just don’t be surprised when God interrupts you with an invitation to love. “Holy Spirit, move my heart with Jesus’ compassion so that I can respond with love at any moment.”

No Place I Would Rather Be

I’m here in my sweet spot – with my two youngest grandsons while their dad and mom are away for a few days. The oldest here -- the handsome dude -- Monday chapel requires ties and jackets. Be still my heart! The youngest is home schooled so I get to step up and be his mama’s eyes and ears. I love it. I actually learn right along with him. I was never a lover of history but with this guy, I can get quite excited about how far we’ve come AND how far we still have to go!

As most know, I’m a daily blogger – so I have to find my quiet spots when I can to wrap my mind around what God would have me say for the next day. Quite often, it’s in those “hiding times” to be with God, my sweet little man interrupts my train of thought to ask me to come watch him climb (seen here – he can’t seem to help himself), or to help him clean out the chicken coop, or feed the other animals, or to watch him play a video game.

To be perfectly honest, sometimes, instead of being glad he popped into my quiet zone, I get a tad annoyed my time with God was interrupted. Then, as he pulls me away, my Heavenly Father whispers in my “spiritual” ears and reminds me “My dear daughter, this is not an interruption, but an illustration of My love, care and affection for you.”

Peace, joy, confidence, hope, faith and love all at once erupt in my heart, moving me closer to Christ. My Heavenly Father illustrated through an interruption what I was seeking all along: His loving presence. And along with it, came this blog.

Our lives are full of interruptions, from a phone call from a needy neighbor, bottle-necked traffice, a sick child, a flat tire, or an illness. These all look, sound and feel like interruptions, but with eyes of faith we have the ability to look beyond life’s interruptions and instead see illustrations of God’s love.

Interruptions can be appointments for compassion. Life may feel unfair, but in our everyday routine, we can recognize the Lord in the little things and love like Jesus. Interruptions represent people to love and be loved! Loving people is the business of Jesus’ followers. It may be a person in our immediate presence, or it could be someone in our peripheral vision, such as a restaurant server who needs to be included in our mealtime prayer. A doctor or nurse who cares for us, a loved one who needs to be encouraged, or a critic who doesn’t have the full story — they too need the gifts of our patience and grace.

Guess what I’m doing – I’m getting us ready for the holidays that are fast approaching. We’ll have many opportunities to look for illustrations of God’s hand in our work, our families and especially during the holidays. Maybe God's intent with interruptions ARE to slow us down, so we can better focus on receiving and giving God's love.

A Love-Fest Day With Jesus

My word for today is "Love-Fest" -- when two or more people indulge in expressing their love for each other in such a way that it never ends. It is the ultimate expression of deep, true love and respect for each other, usually manifested by an outburst of love expressions that make all involved feel warm, acknowledged and cared for.

Last Saturday, precious women from my church headed to Bowie, TX for a one day “get-away-with-God” retreat before we serve 40 women at our ACTS Retreat, March 15-18 and it turned out more glorious than could have been expected. There’s just something about women getting together for time away with God that sets the mood to be vulnerable and open to receive an outpouring of His love to His girls. The wonderful presenters of the retreat called the day "A LOVE-FEST Day With Jesus". Indeed, the definition above was proven to be true! Notice our "doo-rags"? We were heart-cleaning!

No wonder those gals in the Bible wanted to hang out with Jesus. He always seemed to have a little band of women with Him, and He embraced it. In so many places in this world, women are marginalized and ostracized – simply because they are women. If only our world used Jesus' example of how He loved and respected us. He "upset the apple cart" in His culture in the way He related to women. In Luke 8 we see there were women followers who traveled with Jesus and His 12 disciples as He ministered all around Galilee. Those women came from all walks of life, they were single, married, and some had questionable backgrounds, but here’s the common thread – each of them experienced healing through their encounter with Christ. He loved them, taught them and could have cared less about what the pious religious folk thought.

The women that Jesus touched and loved is a mighty indicator of His love for us. The women at the foot of the cross and at the tomb held a tiny flame of faith that He would rise as He promised. That flame never went out, and their faith was rewarded.

That's the way we felt, when, after a sweet time of unbridled openness to each other in small groups, we resumed altogether with candid moments of sharing, giving, encouraging and building each other up in the awareness of God's love for us.

Each of us felt that compassion and love from Jesus and we expressed our love back to him as we each wrote Him a love letter. We all poured our love out to Him -- He Who loves us unconditionally, without judgment or condemnation, and like the woman in the Bible who was caught in the act of adultery, He lovingly wraps His arms around us and says….”You can do better. Go sin no more.” No wonder our innermost love for Him poured out in our love letters.

I know it's absurd of me to think God ordered this LOVE-FEST day just for me, but I did. I like to think that I'm so special to Him, that He orders up special gifts and treats.....just for me. The Apostle John thought the same thing. Remember how he kept referring to himself as the "one that Jesus loved"? Those words are found six times in the Gospel of John. Sounds a little cocky, but, NO, he knew he was tight with his Master. Each and and every one of us can say that. "I am the one that Jesus loves," because He does. Today is another day when duty will call and this team will regroup and finish up our preparations for our upcoming big retreat and 80 women will come together for a weekend of encounters with Christ, but for this day, there was a special, loving, devoted group of servant-women that it was all about the "want to's," Our LOVE-FEST with Jesus will continue.

At the end of the retreat and we were saying our good-byes, I went to my car to load up to go home with my passengers and couldn’t find my keys. I realized, in my haste to get out of the down-pouring rain earlier in the morning, I must have dropped them on the floorboard when I was getting my umbrella. Fortunately, I carry AAA auto insurance and was able to call a locksmith. While waiting for him, I had one on one time with the hosts who, I learned that we have so much in common that pertains to our faith walk and we had mutual time of encouraging each other in the Lord. When I made it home, one of my gals that was a passenger going out called to check on me, and she, too, felt the same about the “interruption” as she had never been able to get to know her driver very well and she did on that trip home. Of course God would “work things for our good” because, after all, we had spent the day talking about His Son, writing love letters to His Son, and celebrating His goodness to us.

When I returned home and while I was basking in His love for me, I realized that daily, Jesus writes a love letters to me telling me “You’re my girl. I’m with you. I’m for you. I love you.” He gave us so many love letters in the Bible, and with each sunrise, each raindrop, each sweet smile and "I love you" from others to us, and even, each morning -- just waking up -- is His love letter to us. He says "I love you. I love you. I love you." When we make our Lord our highest priority, then EVERYDAY becomes a LOVE-FEST with Him.

Regaining Focus in a World of Distractions

My word for today is DISTRACTION: a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something or someone else; interruption, disturbance, interference, hindrance

This post today is longer than my "usual" long post (yikes!) but this message impacted me so much I just had to pass it on -- almost verbatim. My pastor started his message with these words from an anonymous author, but worthy of acclaim because of its significance to us and our world today:

“Satan called a worldwide convention. In his opening address to his demons, he said, “We can’t keep the Christians from going to church. We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can’t even keep them from biblical values. But we can do something else. We can keep them from forming an intimate, continual experience with Christ. If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to church, let them have their Christian lifestyles, but steal their time so they can’t gain experience with Jesus Christ."

"How shall we do this?" his demons shouted. "Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children. As their families fragment, soon their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!"

"Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice. Entice them to play the radio or CD player whenever they drive. To keep their cell phones, TVs and their computers going constantly. This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ. Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their emails and mailboxes with junk mail, advertisements, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes."

"Give them Santa Claus to distract them from teaching their children the real meaning of Christmas. Give them an Easter bunny so they won't talk about his resurrection and power over sin and death. Even in their recreation, let them be excessive. Have them return from their recreation exhausted. Keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect on God's creation. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead. Keep them busy, busy, busy!"

"And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences. Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Jesus. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause. It will work! It will work!"

"It was quite a plan! The demons went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get busier and more rushed, going here and there, having little time for their God or their families and friends. Having no time to tell others about the power of Jesus to change lives. The question is, has the devil been successful at his scheme? You be the judge!"

Pastor Rudy went on: “In today’s readings, we saw that Jesus was busy casting out spirits, then He went to Peter’s home to heal His mother-in-law, and then He met the crowds. It was a busy day. The next morning, He went to a solitary place to pray. It must have been away because the disciples told Him that the people were looking for Him. Then He traveled through Galilee. You always see Jesus drawing away from the crowd to go and pray; to wait on the Lord, to develop His relationship with His Father. Do we remember why Jesus was here in the first place? Do we remember where there is fuel for our daily tasks? He is God who gives strength to the weak. He will renew their strength. Why did Jesus go to the synagogue every week? Why did He go to quiet places to pray? Why did He withdraw from the disciples? Because that is what helped Him keep on track and to receive His strength."

Then, Pastor Rudy referred to men in our church who went on a three-day retreat to get away from DISTRACTIONS so they could focus on God. He went on…..”Why did 35 retreatants sacrifice time away from their family and 34 team members spend months preparing for this retreat? Why are we so committed to ACTS (the retreat name) at this church? Because if we get this right, then we will be better men, husbands, fathers. These men got it right. They are heroes to their families and to us. They followed the example of Christ to get away from the DISTRACTIONS to renew with God.

Following that message, he went on to say, “Now. I want to talk to you about these men who went away on the ACTS Retreat this weekend. They went away to be with their band of brothers to spend time with Christ – to draw closer in their relationship with Him. These men are heroes to their family and to us. They followed the example of Jesus because after Jesus had ministered and prayed for the sick and fed the multitudes and raised the dead, you will find in scripture that He needed to get away to pray. The priority of Jesus’ solitude and silence is everywhere in the Gospels. It’s how He began his ministry. It’s how He made important decisions. It’s how He dealt with troubling emotions like grief. It’s how He dealt with the constant demands of his ministry and cared for his soul. It’s how He taught His disciples. It’s how He prepared for important ministry events. It’s how He prepared for His death on the cross. Jesus’ solitude is how He went deeper in His love-relationship with God. Our men, this weekend, followed Jesus’ lead. Won’t you follow as well?"

At the end of that message, the entire congregation applauded the message and our heroes AND God, who is speaking to us all about DISTRACTIONS that are robbing us of what's the most important ATTRACTIONS -- our families, our friends, our own physical well being AND our God. As my pastor said, "It's time to get it right!"

Inconvenient Circumstances or Divine Appointments?

I've been taking you with me on my journeys lately -- even beyond my Holy Lands trip. Yesterday I alluded to my sharing God's love to a couple of people -- one being a young man who was the tow truck driver for my car. Here's the back-drop to that story. While driving from a friend's house, I realized I might have forgotten my purse there. I no sooner looked down to see if it had maybe fallen to the floorboard of my car, when I ran into the back of another car. I underestimated how close I was to the car when he stopped in front of me.

A simple distraction resulted in a boatload of inconvenience for me and the other driver -- getting repair estimates, getting rental cars, paying deductibles and other added expenses and lengthy dealings with the insurance company. I've done my best to remain positive through the process but it hasn't come without moments of angst. And I finally picked my car up after over six weeks in the repair shop, we found there were even more issues -- thus the need for a tow truck and now it's in the Buick dealership service department.....all this because I was momentarily distracted.

I think about many other close calls while driving and being distracted when I'd reach for my phone, talk to a passenger, change the temperature in the car, look in the mirror to check my make-up, eat while driving, etc. Seriously, this accident could have occurred many times before. I hope I've learned my lessons well and am completely focused from now on.

On the flip side of inconveniences, however, there are also the opportunities we have for realizing "God moments" that unless this incident had happened, there may not have been the encounter with the service people at the repair shop, or the tow truck driver or the insurance representative or even the other party in the accident. Opportunities to reflect patience, peace and faith in the midst of the storm; opportunities to be a light to someone else who is facing far greater circumstances than what we may be going through; opportunities to pray for that one who is hurting more than me.

Jesus came for interruptions AND distractions. He understood His mission. He was not trying to accomplish His own agenda but was about His Father's business. Our Savior was alert and on the lookout for just such strategic appointments -- what we could call human distractions turned divine.

When I think about Jesus' ministry, I am impressed by how many times He was interrupted. No, he didn't have a car or cell phone to distract Him, but He sure did get distracted by Zacchaeus in the Sycamore tree, by the woman with the issue of blood and the adulterous woman who was thrown at His feet, or the paralyzed man being let down through a roof to "interrupt" Him .

What could have been deemed "disruptions" found healing and forgiveness as a result of their encounter with Jesus. He did not resent them; He rescued them. There was such an obvious and genuine love emanating from His life that people flocked to Him. He was an attraction to distraction..

I wonder ... are people attracted to me when they encounter me? I remember nurses, doctors and medical staff being so drawn to us in the middle of our most challenging times -- simply because we didn't let the circumstances define us. We defined our circumstances as opportunities to be a light in the darkness.

We have the words of life to share with others. We have the love of Christ to give others. Perhaps, the interruptions and distractions are part of a Master plan that intersects our lives with someone who needs a healing touch -- even if it's right smack dab in one of our most inconvenient circumstances. If we don't show up for the divine appointment -- who will? Hmm -- just maybe my accident was really a divine appointment. That sure makes me feel better, anyway!

"The King will answer, 'Truly I say to you, as you have done it for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you have done it for Me." Matthew 25:40

Excuse Me....Could I Have Your Undivided Attention Please?

Excuse Me....Could I Have Your Undivided Attention Please?
These days, it's almost impossible to have a meal or a focused conversation with someone without being interrupted by a phone call or text message. How does it make you feel to be having a nice conversation with someone, and then THEIR phone rings or dings that indicates a text message coming through, AND, without even a second thought, they leave you hanging while they answer their phone or text message? Ugh! And how do you feel if you're sitting at the dinner table with others and instead of carrying on conversation with you, you seem to be the only one at attention because the others are all checking their Facebook, Instagram or emails?

Okay, I'll admit it. I've been on both sides....the one singing "All By Myself" while others were heads down in their phones, AND I've been the one with my head down in MY phone. What in the world? Where did our respect for others and being laser focused on others in their presence go? I'm ashamed of us!! It's time for putting those phones in another room or turning them off so we can get back to what's REALLY important -- being a sincere, caring, and respectful friend and family member. It's like going into a store -- you made the effort to go to the store and BE THERE, when the store's phone rings, and the sales clerk answers it and carries on a conversation with them, instead of honoring the fact that YOU ARE THERE!

The point was made ever so profoundly yesterday morning as I sat on my friend's lovely screened-in porch that overlooks the beautiful pond and fountain, sipping my coffee, worshipping and praising my Lord as I read my devotion book and scriptures, WHEN.....my phone dinged, alerting me to check out who just left a text message for me. After all, it could be the plumber, the friend that's coming over later today, or one of my children or grandchildren needing me. Right? Oh, so WRONG! I was fully engaged in conversation with my Heavenly Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth, My Creator, My Savior Who Gave His life for me, My Confidant, Healer and the King of all Kings....and I let myself be interrupted. Oh, and to make matters worse....while I was checking that ding, I just had to check my Facebook account and any emails that may have come in. Are you kidding ME? How could I be so inconsiderate? How could I be so unthoughtful? Suddenly, I was well aware of how rude and disrepectful I have been. Immediately, I heard God's tender and loving words "Heaven to Donna!!!! Could I have your undivided attention please?" While begging for forgiveness, I took the phone into the house and then went back to my Welcomed Guest and resumed my one-on-one with The Almighty! My goodness!

So let's do a Where's Waldo?" search. Where is the object in this photo that is used by the enemy to steal my alone time with my Best Friend, Father and my CEO? Oh, there it is.....smack dab in the middle.....instead of AWAY from being a distraction to my one-on-one time with my ROYAL guest. Jesus sat the example for us in Mark 1:35-36 "And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He departed and went out to a DESOLATE PLACE, and there He prayed."