Interruptions as Opportunities (Daily Encouragement Series)
Psalm 46:5: God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved
I’ve shared a couple times an impactful call where a pastor from Europe, who had already experienced the impact of the coronavirus, encouraged us to prepare ourselves and our churches for suffering. In seeking to prepare and process myself, I remembered a lot of my counselor friends have been shaped by the catholic theologian Henri Nouwen. He speaks and teaches a lot on experiencing God at a heart level (and not just information which is what I can drift toward). So I did a little research and started reading his book “Reaching Out” which speaks into our relationship with ourselves, others and God at a heart level.
Below is an excerpt where he speaks into viewing “interruptions” in our life (I think we can all agree we have been “interrupted) as “opportunities”. Opportunities to be shaped, molded, matured and changed. Opportunities to KNOW GOD and experience Him in a new way. Opportunities for HOPE.
Here is the excerpt:
“While visiting the University of Notre Dame, where I had been a teacher for a few years, I met an older experienced professor who had spent most of his life there. And while we strolled over the beautiful campus, he said with a certain melancholy in his voice,
“You know,… my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.”
Don’t we often look at the many events of our lives as big or small interruptions, interrupting many of our plans, projects and life schemes? Don’t we feel an inner protest when a student interrupts our reading, bad weather our summer, illness our well-scheduled plans, the death of a dear friend our peaceful state of mind, a cruel war our ideas about the goodness of man, and the many harsh realities of life our good dreams about it? And doesn’t this unending row of interruptions build in our hearts feelings of anger, frustration and even revenge, so much so that at times we see the real possibility that growing old can become synonymous with growing bitter?
But what if our interruptions are in fact our opportunities, if they are challenges to an inner response by which growth takes place and through which we come to the fullness of being? What if the events of our history are molding us as a sculptor molds his clay, and if it is only in a careful obedience to these molding hands that we can discover our real vocation and become mature people? What if all the unexpected interruptions are in fact the invitations to give up old-fashioned and outmoded styles of living and are opening up new unexplored areas of experience? And finally: What if our history does not prove to be a blind impersonal sequence of events over which we have no control, but rather reveals to us a guiding hand pointing to a personal encounter in which all our hopes and aspirations will reach their fulfillment?
Then our life would indeed be a different life because then fate becomes opportunity, wounds a warning and paralysis an invitation to search for deeper sources of vitality. Then we can look for hope in the middle of crying cities, burning hospitals and desperate parents and children. Then we can cast off the temptation of despair and speak about the fertile tree while witnessing the dying of the seed. Then indeed we can break out of the prison of an anonymous series of events and listen to the God of history who speaks to us in the center of our solitude and respond to his ever new call for conversion.”
May we use this “opportunity” as a time to be molded, have a renewed hope and experience the God of history who is with us and speaks to us.
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Come, behold the works of the LORD,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.