Blessed Interruptions

James 4:13-16 cf Jeremiah 29:11; Acts 17:26-28 On April 2nd, I received a "blessed interruption" in that my first child was born, which is why I haven't posted since then. Nathan was due on April 22--I was supposed to have 3 more weeks to prepare. I'd planned to have maybe a month's worth of posts built up by then so I could be posting here, but wouldn't have to fit that in around diaper changing and desperately trying to catch up on sleep. I'd planned to get ahead in a lot of things before he came. As I sat in the hospital rocking Nathan so my wife could get some sleep, I thought about how my plans for the next three weeks would need to change. That led me to think about James 4:13-16. Last August, I posted about the danger of living rigidly by a day planner. The text for that passage was James 4:13-16, where James warns merchants not to make plans without the caveat "if the Lord wills" we will do such and such. The lesson is that many of us, myself included, get caught up in our day-to-day to do lists and lose sight of the hand of God in our lives. Interestingly, God has a way of getting our attention sometimes. Steinbeck (and Robert Burns before him) explained that the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. Sometimes, those things happen because we're pursuing a course different from what God had in mind for us. But even when we tell ourselves that, it's still tough to bear down deep in our core. My interruption was a wonderful one, but that isn't always the case--not getting an account, missing a promotion, an argument with a coworker or supervisor, getting "right sized"--all of these interrupt our plans. The lesson from James as well as other passages such as Jeremiah 29:11 and Acts 17:26-28 is that God knows our plans but His plans take priority. In Acts 17, Paul explains to the Athenians that God put us here, at this time and at this place. Jeremiah tells the people of Judah that they are going into 70 years of captivity (a MAJOR interruption!!), but that God had plans for them to prosper greatly after those 70 years were over. How many times of prosperity have we missed because we've refused to consider God's plans for our time? As you continue through this week and plan for the next, be sure to leave flexibility in your schedule. Who knows what kinds of blessed interruptions God will bring your way?