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Why do I write Interruptions?
Moses was pasturing the flock of his father-in-law and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Then the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush, and Moses looked and behold the bush was not being consumed by the fire. Exodus 3:1-2
Now Saul, breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord… was traveling to Damascus with letters from the high priest to arrest followers of the Way… and as he was traveling, suddenly a blinding light from heaven flashed around him. Acts 9:1-3
Moses and the burning bush, Saul with a blinding light on the road to Damascus, and Pastor Grant with his almost daily Interruptions – all have the same purpose.
Walking our road, doing what we have done for years, it is too easy to live comfortably. Perhaps the Lord has a different plan. The enemy of needed change can be the dull routine of our lives.
May bright lights and burning bushes interrupt us all!
If God is big and we are small, if we are to become like Christ, then a burning bush, a road to Damascus, or an Interruption, something convicting, causing change, should be common.
We should seek these experiences.
Teaching First Steps (a ministry of one-on-one discipleship), we used to hold a three-day conference in a prison. We knew that it only took three days of breaking the prison routine of sleep, food, exercise, and sitting around (repeated daily), to create momentum for change.
An interruption.
It is the same thinking with high school students at a Young Life camp during the summer. One ministry that I know takes men to a few days of retreat at a monastery. I’ve witnessed that God is bigger in the lives of those who take short-term mission trips.
Never the same, after seeing the light on the road to Damascus.
It does not take days; it can happen in a moment. I entered Bible college because a local pastor said that I needed better theological training. (A problem that I still have!) I talked to a high-level Mary Kay consultant and she said her journey began by just asking another woman about the make-up that she was wearing.
Have you had a significant life change by an unexpected and innocuous encounter? The burning bush doesn’t have to be on a mountain. It can by in your neighbor’s front yard. You can get up in the morning, read an Interruption, and sell everything that you own.
I’m getting extreme; I admit that some still consider my theology lacking.
We become like Christ by the big and the small experiences. I ask the Lord every morning to help me see His works, His word, and His interruptions.
Reading Exodus 3, you will note a strange nuance in the passage:
Moses thought as he looked at the burning bush, “I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that Moses had come to look, God called out to him from within the bush. Exodus 3:3-4
The passage infers that Moses had to think and that God waited to speak until Moses approached. Moses could have walked by the burning bush.
I hope that I have the courage to approach the strange and uncomfortable in 2021. I pray that I’m not too old, too set in my ways, too familiar with my life, too tired, or just having a bad day and wanting to get home to watch TV…
…that I walk by the interruption.