Interruption

By Pastor Paul Gauche

Today’s Word: ‘Interruption’ as in… what if an interruption was really just an invitation?

I follow a well-worn daily rhythm nearly every day. I do an early morning workout, get myself ready for the day ahead, kiss Nancy Lee au revoir, head to the caffeine palace drive-through before settling into my favorite little corner of creativity for some meditation and devotional time using the Headspace and Lectio 365 apps. After that I do some journaling and reading, and then move through the day with my “Ta-Dahhh! list. This is a good, creative, thriving rhythm for me. And it all goes very well until I’m interrupted by something or someone who needs me.

We all experience interruptions. Think about the last time you were interrupted. An email from a coworker pops up on your screen: “Coming to the meeting?” A text message from your bank: “Did you intend to spend this amount on that item?” A call comes from your granddaughter: “Will you make the cheesecake for my birthday party?” The possibilities for interruptions are seemingly endless. Circumstances arise which demand that we set aside whatever rhythm we were in and ‘pivot’ in an entirely different direction. That’s happened to me hundreds of times. And if you’re like me and thousands of others just like us, sometimes interruptions can seem like an inconvenience.

But they don’t have to be.

What if there were ways to reframe interruptions? What if we trained ourselves to treat the interruption as an invitation? What if we understood the interruption as an invitation to experience something we might otherwise have missed? What if we treated the interruption as an invitation to bring goodness, kindness, love to someone, to expand love, to help another human being thrive? What if we treated the interruption as an invitation to see Christ in that moment? What if we welcomed the interruption as the visible, tangible presence of Jesus in our lives? That could change everything.

Interruptions are not going away. Interruptions are part of the rhythm of our lives together.

How we respond to them, though, makes all the difference.

#100days50words

Paul Gauche is the Pastor of Life Transitions at Prince of Peace. His posts are part of his #100days50words project, where be blogs about a different word each day. You can follow his project on Instagram (@pgauche), or on his blog, Thriving Rhythms.