OUR HEARTS ARE STIRRED WITH LOVE WHEN INTERRUPTIONS CAUSE US TO LEAVE GOD FOR GOD

As I look back on my week and review it, it seems that while it was good, it was chaotic.  I couldn’t put it in a box and tie it with a bow. What do I mean by that? I feel like I have been all over the place.  Work has been very busy which leaves me little energy left for my personal life.  The house is a mess, my to-do-list has had to be shorter and I’ve been going to bed late because I have no energy to even get off the couch.  Last night I felt so overwhelmed that we ordered out instead of eating canned chili, which I bought for such times, but then completely forgot about.   I know it is a part of life.  I know it is no big deal, but I know that within that chaotic feeling, God is present and eager for me to learn more about Him and His love for me through it.  As always, however, we have to first know ourselves if we are to know God more.  

In the past I have learned to adjust my expectations during these brief moments in life.  I have learned they pass and setting myself up for failure only increases my frustrations and feelings of being over whelmed.  Cutting back and knowing that this too shall pass seems to work better even though I am feeling the chaos for a bit.  I like order and calm because I feel like I can hear God more. That is understanding and knowing about me, but what about God?

I know God must like order and calm too because He did one thing a day on the first seven days.  He stuck to it until He was finished. He kept it calm. He didn’t dabble one day with water and land and the land and the sun  the next.   He finished one job before He started a new task.  He remained focused. That God handled it this way also shows me that He is in the moment.  By creating man last, He was able to maintain the calm and order while enjoying the moment.  Things definitely got more chaotic once man entered the picture.

God also gave us the 10 Commandments, which show us that God loves order and that all His laws are based on love.  Jesus pointed out that the countless additional regulations people were practicing were given by man, not God. God doesn’t enslave us as the rules had done. The 10 Commandments were broken down into two by Jesus because all the Commandments were basically directives to love God and neighbor.  When we do this, all will be well.  God only asked that we love. Every problem of the world could be solved if we lived by those Commandments and loved those who God charges us to care for.  

Man came and chaos entered, but we know that He still desires calm and order because God never changes. He still desires us to live in the moment just as He modeled.  He still desires that we live by the two laws of love.  Life would be so much calmer if everyone looked to God as our model and only wanted His will.  

In  learning about what I don’t like and how God acts, I’ve learned more about God and that the desires for calm I have are His desires working in me. The question now becomes, in a world where people don’t want God‘s will necessarily, how do I keep calm?  I know I have to cooperate with God and have tried to do just that.  Order is what I try to keep in mind during the crazy times, but now I have learned I have more room to grow.  

For me the hardest times are the unexpected times.  Perhaps as the unpleasant unexpected comes it is as if we are put in the garden of Eden. Not that the unexpected is sinful, but God put Adam and Eve in the order and expected calm, but got chaos. He expected His desires to be fulfilled and they were put on hold. Perhaps all our unpleasant interruptions are the result of original sin. We may have a calm day, but, for instance, if someone gets sick and we need to help, it is a result of original sin because we weren’t originally meant to get sick. If we are annoyed by the change in plans, we are compounding the disruption.  If the unexpected we are experiencing is good, we are experiencing an Annunciation moment.  It seems that in the unexpected, we are either  wrapped up in Eve’s choice or Mary’s Annunciation moment, so to speak.  In Eve moments  we need to fight the temptation to act poorly and act with love just as God did when He made Adam and Eve clothes.  In Annunciation moments we need to trust and say yes just as Mary did.  In both times, when God enters, all interruptions are made good.

I am not suggesting that we can be focused and always take on one job at a time as God did. There are times when that would not be possible, but I do see that God is always calm and in the moment. People came and within that came sin and distraction, but we can do a job, all in, until we can’t. We don’t have to worry about what is ahead if we are stopped.

Did Jesus live like this? Did He embrace order and living in the moment? Did He focus on one job until He could no longer focus on it? Did He meet the interruptions of life with love as God the Father did in the garden of Eden? He definitely did.  He would go to lonely places and the people would find Him and ask for help. Without hesitation He stopped praying.  He would take walks and the sick would stop Him in order to ask for healings. I would say we can see He was in the moment by His ability to have an interruption and not tell people to wait or come back another time.  Jesus embraced the interruptions as if embracing His Father.  He lived the Jewish teachings, practiced the 10 Commandments and even showed us there were basically two loving God and neighbor.  Yes.  Jesus embraced seeking God in the moments as they presented themselves and He embraced order as well.

To be in the moment like that and have all the peace and calm order brings, we have to see God in all things. We have to be willing to stop doing what we are doing, believing we are stopping to be with God. In other words, you must know we are leaving God for God.  We would grasp at such an interruption with love if we could see with our eyes. We would embrace the moment with fervor because we would want to appreciate it in the event it never happened again.  We would know that at this moment the to-do-list may say what we have to do, but if it was stopped for a moment we would be fine because we are choosing God. If we had other things to do after, we would be fine. We would focus on them when the time came, but for now we would know it was not the time.  While we cannot see all this with our eyes, we must see it with the eyes of faith.

If I want to live in the moment and have order and find myself lacking peace, it is because I’m fighting God’s will.  I want a task to be done and yet I can’t because something else must be completed. I then think of what I want. I think of my reward when it’s done. I think about everything else I would like to do and I feel discomfort. I feel the discomfort because I am fighting the presence of God in the moment. I want to find Him elsewhere. I want to leave setting up the land so I can move on to water. I actually want the very thing I don’t want…chaos and not order.  Within every dislike someone may feel, however it may look, is someone not living in the moment. In the dislike they are focusing on self and the way the moment is making them feel.  Of course, we should always dislike evil, but we must discern what that is.  Much of the time what we insist is evil that others are doing is really evil in the form of our pride and self love.  It is about what I, I, I want and not what God wants. 

Each day we should have one thing on the top of our to do list… Spend the day with God. If this is the focus on everything we experience, whether planned or unplanned, we can be at peace knowing we are still with God. We are embracing order because we are with Him. Order brings peace and how we perceive what is before us can bring us God and His peace if we listen to the stirrings of our hearts.  In the stirrings of our hearts, we can find that interruptions are simply opportunities to leave God for God.  

Prayerfully Reflect On:

Loving God and neighbor are our two greatest commandments.  Meditate on Matt 22:37-40.

Sometimes we intend to rest, but people need us.  Meditate on Matt 15:29-32.

Sometimes the interruptions of life come from our possessions breaking destroyed and we cannot see the good in that happening.  Meditate on Luke 5:17-20

Sometimes we are interrupted when we are sleeping.  Meditate on Luke 8:22-25

Sometimes our prayer time is interrupted.  Meditate on Mark 1:35-37.  

Sometimes our will is not God’s will.  Meditate on Mark 8:31-33